What Were They Thinking?

I was watching the Phillies-Rays last night in that debacle that lacked only an ark to save the living beings who were forced to be in it (not the fans who could have left at anytime).

MLB, not known for being the brightest organization on the planet, almost had a royal fiasco ... worse than it already is.

Playing in a wretched, miserable, cold downpour, the umpires incredibly allowed the game to continue past the middle of the fifth inning at which time the game becomes an official game.

Yes, that's right, sports fans. The World Series deciding game could have ended on a rain delay in the middle of the night.

As I watched the last of the fourth and the top of the fifth, I kept saying to myself and to all who would listen (happened to be my tolerant wife who doesn't understand why I watch games when I don't care who wins) that the umpires have to call this before the middle of the fifth.

Alas, no one was listening (except my tolerant wife who has no authority to call a rain delay).

Rumor has it that Selig wasn't going to let the World Series be decided on a rain delay, but one wonders what rule in the rulebook he was going to appeal to for that. Last I checked, you don't just get to make them up as you go along (unless it is the All-Star game and it is tied). Apparently, an "indefinite rain delay" was going to be the explanation.

The simple solution was to call the game before that became a possibility. Or to never have let it start to begin with.

MLB isn't known for simplicity. Or smarts.

And by the way, B. J. Upton's steal in the top of the sixth was amazing. The last time I saw a jump that big, Bush 41 was celebrating a birthday. If Upton hadn't been slowed down by the mud, he may have made it to third with that jump.

Noah's Ark and Shifting Ice

Empires of the Plain (by Lesley Adkins) chronicles the life of Henry Rawlinson, who served with the East India Company in the 1800s, primarily in the Middle East. There he became fascinated with ancient cuneiform and devoted a significant amount of time to learning it in its various forms. He became one of the leading experts on the "lost languages of Persia and Babylon" (from blurb).The book is interesting though a bit slow at times.

On to the point, Adkins notes that Rawlinson believed in the biblical story of Noah's Ark and was intending to climb Mount Ararat, but never was able to do it (not for lack of ability but for lack of opportunity).

Interestingly, Adkins says this about Noah's Ark:

From the mid-nineteenth century there have been over forty claims of spotting the ark on Mount Ararat, at times seen embedded in ice or submerged in a lake, since when about 140 expeditions have attempted to find the ark. Ancient wood can survive for thousands of years in very dry or in waterlogged conditions, but Mount Ararat is a large and inhospitable dormant volcano, although no known eruptions have occurred in historical times. There is no evidence of marine deposits from a flood, and the volcano has probably erupted within the last 10,000 years, since any Biblical flood. The ice cap, hundreds of feet thick, is thought to be the most likely hiding place for the ark, and yet the movement of the glaciers would pulverize a wooden vessel (p. 39).

The search for Noah's Ark has always been considered somewhat of a holy grail by some creationists, the secret key to evangelism and proving the Bible true. But Adkins is probably right. Any wooden vessel would likely have been destroyed by the millennia of shifting ice, but the record of Scripture stands untarnished. We would do better, it seems to me, to hang our hopes on the power of the available Word rather than the apologetic of a unavailable boat.

I am reminded of the words of Abraham to the Rich Man: "They have Moses and the Prophets; Let them hear them ... If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead [or finds Noah's Ark]" (Luke 16:31).

Low-Self Esteem Isn't

I tend to think it is actually high self-esteem. Someone is given to thinking that they deserve more than whatever their current status in life has given them (through the providence of God). Their exalted view of self says that they deserve more than what they currently have.

It seems low self-esteem is one of the most common diagnoses of psychological and social problems in modern society. It is why teenage girls (and even older women) are sexually immoral. It is why people do drugs and get into fights. It is why children misbehave in school. And the list goes on and on. But if we look closer at these situations, I think we will find that most of these people are acting out of unrealized wants, whether for affection they think they deserve, or respect they think they are not getting, or good feelings that they think they don't have, or escape from reality that they think they can't do without.

I think most often that low self-esteem people are the primary objects of their own thought. They think about themselves all the time, mourning their current situation in life. They want the attention of others. They moan about the sorry state of their lives, about the fact that no one likes them, etc. They are, in effect, very prideful. They think everyone else should think as much about them as they do about themselves.

Sometimes, "low self-esteem" people become the most manipulative people because of their desire for the acceptance of others to feed their own self-obsession. As a result, they will attempt to make others feel bad for not treating them like they believe they deserve to be treated.

The question for those with low self-esteem isn't "Why do you think poorly of yourself?" The question is "Why do you think about yourself at all?"

The solution to low self-esteem is not "Think better about yourself." It is rather "Stop thinking about yourself."

The words of Paul and the life of Christ speak to this very issue:

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves ... Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:3, 5-8).

In other words, the gospel itself is the answer to low self-esteem: Empty yourself like Jesus did.

Food for Thought

I won't tell you where* I culled this quote from, because I do not want to incur the wrath of fundamentalist blogdom and give opportunity for people to use the alphabet in ways it was not intended to be used,** but I think it is worthy of thought.

Simply, until you fear God and weigh him most heavily in your life, you will remain an undisciplined fool.

This has application to more than the specific topic to which it is addressed.***

*DISCLAIMER: With respect to the person who said this, I do not subscribe to, support, endorse, recommend, speak highly of, think well of, reference positively, refuse to criticize, [pause for a breath], enjoy the crassness of, think he is above confrontation, think he is good for the church at large, think he is the Messiah of the modern age, or anything else you can think of to include here. If you think I should not have quoted it here, or linked to it, GET OVER IT.

[Even God used Balaam's ass, of which I was reminded this morning by Al Mohler (in his talk from GodBlogCon last year) that you can't say that in postmodern culture anymore because people automatically think the same thing you just thought. And don't accuse me of being crass. People used the word long before I did, and I used it the way that the KJV did.]

And no, with respect to Al Mohler, I do not subscribe to, support, endorse, recommend, speak highly of, think well of, reference positively, refuse to criticize, [pause for a breath], enjoy the crassness of, think he is above confrontation, think he is good for the church at large, think he is the Messiah of the modern age, or anything else you can think of to include here. If you think I should not have quoted it here, or linked to it, GET OVER IT.

**If you don't get the reference, consider yourself lucky. Do not, however, consider your present luck as an endorsement of going to a casino to see if you can capitalize on it. With respect to casino gambling, I do not subscribe to, support, endorse, recommend, speak highly of, think well of, reference positively, refuse to criticize, [pause for a breath], enjoy the crassness of, think it is above confrontation, think it is good for the church at large, think it is the Messiah of the modern age, or anything else you can think of to include here. If you think I should not have talked about the casino here here, GET OVER IT.

And if you don't agree with my demented sense of humor, get over that too.

***Forget the disclaimers and meditate on the fear of God.

On Preaching

From Bonar's biography of McCheyne:

There is a wide difference between preaching doctrine and preaching Christ (p. 72).

I wonder how many pastors are guilty of having very doctrinal messages that don't have much of Christ in them?

I struggle with this to some degree because I am convinced that not every passage is about Christ, contrary to some of our well meaning friends.

I am reminded of what my systematic theology professor used to say in quoting someone else about allegorizing and spiritualizing the OT: I am pretty sure some of those nails in the tabernacle were there just to hold the place together.

By that he meant that we don't need see some significance in everything. Some things are just things; they are not other things.

But we, as pastors, would do well to preach Christ more fervently and more faithfully.

What It Doesn't Say

Working in the book of Nehemiah this morning reminds me of an all to familiar teaching or preaching tactic ... that of concentrating on what the text doesn't say.

This comes to mind because Nehemiah 4:1-3 records the mocking opposition of Sanballat and Tobiah against the Jews who were rebuilding the wall. Then vv. 4-5 record Nehemiah's prayer to God.

I heard a preacher once emphasizing the fact that Nehemiah did not respond to Sanballat and Tobiah, but instead turned directly to God in prayer. Therefore we should not respond to our enemies but turn directly to God.

The problem is that the text doesn't say that.

In preaching and teaching, we must realize that the text does not tell us everything that happened. Historical narrative is a selective process, where the author chooses to relate only those things which somehow help his point.

Did Nehemiah speak to Sanballat and Tobiah? I suspect he probably did. But I would not preach that he didn't. Because the text doesn't say that.