On March 11, 2021
By Bill Smith
In Counseling/Piety, Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom
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The best defense is a good offense. We often hear this in
the world of sports, but it is also generally true in all of life. Proactively
pursuing positive, productive disciplines is better than defensively sitting
around telling yourself not to engage
in this sinful activity or not to
think about that sin. What happens when I tell you not to think about a horse?
The image of a horse comes to mind. The more you tell yourself not to think
about it, the more you find yourself dwelling on it. Instead of defensively
dwelling upon what we are not supposed to do, we need to be offensively
pursuing what is good, true, and beautiful.
This principle holds true in relationships. Being prepared
to forgive is necessary because offenses will come (Mt 18.7). But there are
ways to take preemptive strikes against the sins that would destroy our
relationship. We do this by pursuing
peace. In this article and the next, I will give you some ways to do so in
contrast with ways to destroy peace.
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On March 5, 2021
By Bill Smith
In Counseling/Piety, Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom
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“Why must I forgive? He did me wrong. He owes me. I deserve
justice! It isn’t right that he sins against me, depriving me of my possessions
and dignity, and then I am expected to cancel the debt. That’s not fair.”
These thoughts have probably crossed your mind before when
dealing with a painful experience of someone sinning against you. But you are a
Christian, and the Lord Jesus commands you to forgive your brother when he
comes to you asking for forgiveness. If you don’t forgive him, God will not forgive
you. Indeed, he will reinstate the debt against you for not forgiving your
brother (Mt 18.21-35).
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On February 19, 2021
By Bill Smith
In Counseling/Piety, Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom
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Most of us don’t like turmoil. When there is tension in our
relationships, we want to resolve it so that we can live joyful and
anxiety-free. To do that, there are times that we may be willing to
short-circuit the process of reconciliation through not dealing adequately with
sin. We have been told that, as Christians, we have the responsibility to
forgive. Some trying to take this seriously, believe that this means that you
release the person from all responsibility for his actions, the necessity for
him to change, let him continue the way he is living, and you, being a good
Christian, bear all of the scars and residual pain. Or maybe, because we don’t
like the discomfort of the whole situation, we dismissively say, “I
forgive you” to paper over the sin in the relationship so that we don’t
have to do the uncomfortable work of working through it. However, if the goal
of forgiveness is peace in a relationship–a healthy wholeness between
individuals–then the process of forgiveness can’t be cheapened in these ways. As disciples of Jesus, Christians are called
into a lifestyle of forgiveness which involves dealing appropriately with sin
and seeking to restore a communion of peace with others.
There are some misconceptions concerning forgiveness that
need to be cleared up.
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On February 18, 2021
By Bill Smith
In Church, Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom
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Central to the Christian faith stands the images of the cross and
an empty tomb, which is the end of our journey during this Lenten season. The
breach between God and man created by the sin of the first Adam is remedied
through the last Adam taking upon himself the burden of the consequences of sin
so that all of creation and especially man himself might be released from sin’s
penalty and power. In short, in the cross and resurrection, Jesus accomplished
the forgiveness of sins. The message of the apostles was consistent that the
forgiveness of sins is proclaimed in Christ because he secured it through his
shed blood and resurrection (cf. Ac 5.31; 13.38; 26.18; Rom 4.25; Eph 1.7; Col
1.14). Now, as we are baptized into Christ, Peter says, we are baptized for the
forgiveness of our sins (Ac 2.38). Forgiveness of sins is central to the gospel
of Christ.
Forgiveness is not only a privilege to enjoy, but, once received,
it becomes a calling to be lived. As renewed images of God in Christ, we are to
consciously take on the character of our forgiving God, learning how to
practice the craft of forgiveness. Only as we live this way will we be able to
live together as faithful people of God. In our present cultural climate where
there is no forgiveness because of skin color, social status, or a myriad of
other things, only perpetual guilt and division, it is incumbent upon
Christians to learn of and practice the grace of forgiveness.
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On February 17, 2021
By Bill Smith
In Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom
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Wisdom is the knowledge of how various things ought to fit
together properly and the skill to make them so. Whether you are looking at
Bezalel, an artist and master craftsman, who is given the Spirit of wisdom to
construct the tabernacle (Ex 31.2-5), or the wise king, Solomon, who knows how
to put people back in right relationship with one another–justice–wisdom sees
how different parts of the world are to fit properly with one another and has
the skill to make them so. Paul himself is a “wise master builder” who is
constructing the church upon the foundation of Christ Jesus (1Cor 3.10). He
knows how to put people together so that they can live the way that they ought
to live. Wisdom takes all the tools of knowledge and logic and artistically
works with different materials in diverse situations to make something
beautiful even when there are no step-by-step, paint-by-numbers instructions.
Life and relationships are not always that simple.
That is why we must become artists; craftsmen who have been
trained thoroughly in the fundamentals who can then beautifully riff off of
those fundamentals, staying true to them, while also dealing with situations
for which there are no sets of rules. Like musicians who have learned scales
and harmonies who grow into composers of beautiful music or engineers who have
learned the science of structures who grow into designers of beautiful
buildings, so all of us as Christians must get down the basics so that we may
grow to be skilled craftsman, wise master builders, in relationships.
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On January 22, 2021
By Bill Smith
In Culture, Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom
1
This past week the United States of America inaugurated a
new president. I don’t like him. I believe he is, as my grandpa used to say,
“crooked as a barrel o’ snakes.” I don’t like his vice president. I despise his
baby-killing-gender-bending-Marxist-promoting-communist-China-loving-LGBTQ-racist-Orwellian
agenda. The Biden administration is an unapologetic enemy to the kingdom of
God, no matter all of the “God-talk” they employ. I am one of those kooks who
believes the election fraud was so evident that it was hard to believe. No one
will ever be able to convince me that Joe Biden was elected legitimately.
However, none of that means that I can say that he is “not my president.” He is
a legitimate president because the powers-that-be under our Constitution
certified him as president.
This situation is nothing new to world history or even to
God’s people in particular. For example, God made it clear in Israel who were
to be the priests and high priests: the sons of Aaron. As history progressed,
the sons of Aaron were even narrowed down in the time of David to the line of
Zadok. Only Aaron’s sons through Zadok were to be high priests. Upon the Jews’
return to the land after captivity and exile, the Zadokian line had to be
restored when the temple was rebuilt. However, between the rebuilding of the
temple and the birth of Jesus, the high priesthood became a position that could
be bought and sold or given as a gift by rulers. During the lifetimes of Jesus
and his apostles, the high priests were not “constitutionally legitimate.”
Nevertheless, neither Jesus nor the apostles refused their authority.
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On January 9, 2021
By Bill Smith
In Culture, Discipleship, Wisdom
5
Tensions are running high. For the past nine months, we have
been living with a novel virus, politicians playing power games with the virus,
people losing their livelihoods, social unrest because of police actions
resulting in deaths, and, now, political unrest because of the questions about
the legitimacy of the recent election. Societal anxiety is high. Whether or not
you have felt the pinch directly from any of these things, you are affected.
The anxiety is in the air. Our leaders, who have the power to allay societal
anxiety, have not only refused to do so but rather they have exacerbated it by
their blatant hypocrisies as well as using it as an opportunity to enrich themselves
and increase their power. We are sitting on a powder keg with a bunch of
hysterical toddlers playing with matches. We know the explosion is coming. The
anticipation of disaster creates anxiety.
Whenever these sorts of things happen in a society, people
look for relief. We need rest. We can’t live like this. We’re going to pop. All
of this sets us up for some type of messianic figure who will lead a
revolution. It may or may not be bloody, but it will be revolutionary and
promise peace. With the potential for rest, we will give up our heritage of
liberty and just about anything else. If we believe in his cause, we may even
fight. Tensions must find resolution.
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On December 17, 2020
By Bill Smith
In Men, Wisdom
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Young Man,
Men and women are
different. The differences between us are not merely in our
“plumbing.” We are different all the way down to the chromosomal
level. One of the differences between us that is both frustrating and
delightful is the way we think like men and women. Those differences in the way
we receive and process information–thinking–is the focus of this letter. Once
you read this, you will understand why many times you don’t understand women.
Men and women have the same
parts in their brains, but the wiring is different, you might say. (For a
humorous introduction to this, watch the video A
Tale of Two Brains.) This doesn’t mean that
one way of thinking is superior to the other any more than a hammer is superior
to a saw. It simply means that they are different, and, like the hammer and the
saw, when they are used for that which they were made within the same project,
they work together to complete the project. God created us to be oriented to
the world as men and women. Each of us has sex-specific missions in the
dominion of the world. These two ways of thinking are oriented toward those
missions so that together we complement one another to complete man’s (man +
woman) mission.
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On December 14, 2020
By Mark Horne
In Wisdom
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As I was writing my book on Proverbs, I made a point to not mention certain things. One of those things was my ischemic stroke.
Wait a minute, Mark. You were writing a book on Proverbs. Proverbs! What could your stroke have to do with anything? Why would you even think of it?
I had reasons, but the worry that people would find such a discussion outlandish and perhaps decide I was looking for an excuse to write about myself, outweighed them.
Recently, I got James Clear’s valuable book, Atomic Habits, from the library. In the introduction, Clear begins by recounting his high school experience dealing with a life-threatening brain injury. He describes what was involved in his recovery as an entry-way into his learning the importance of acquiring productive habits.
My brain injury was much later in life (just over five years ago in my late forties), and I actually started to think about Proverbs before it happened. But the experience helped solidify my understanding.
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On November 15, 2020
By Bill Smith
In Culture, Politics, Theology, Wisdom
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The issue of taxes can be a volatile subject. A political
party’s position on taxes is one of the great dividing lines that emerges in many
political campaigns. Taxes don’t merely concern issues of dollars and cents
(though we are all happier to keep as much money as we possibly can). Taxes
speak to issues of authority, the size and scope of government, charity, private
property, civic responsibility, and many other issues.
Let’s look at one particular tax for illustrative purposes: property
taxes. We pay property taxes to provide a number of different services for the local
area. Whether you agree with those services and the place of government in
providing them is not my concern at this point. The tax itself is the issue. What
does the property tax say about private property? Quite frankly, it tells the
citizenry that there is no such thing as private property. You have the privilege
of spending money on a piece of land and building a house on it, but the land
is owned by the local government. If you don’t believe me, don’t pay your property
tax. You will see who owns the land within a few months. You will be evicted from
the land and house you thought you purchased.
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