Category Archives: Teaching

Degrees

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apolloNORMALLY, WITH NO phone or e-mail interruptions, I look forward to redeeming the time on a plane by writing, reading, or doing correspondence…
But after the battery on my computer ran out, and sitting next to someone for what seemed like forever, I finally struck up a conversation with my next-door neighbor. He was an engineer from the Houston area.
“Petroleum engineer?” I asked.
“No, I work for NASA,” he admitted.
And of course, for the next hour I’m sure that’s something he wished he hadn’t confessed. Like most people my age who grew up watching the build-up of manned space flight to Neil Armstrong leaving his footprints on the moon, I was an astronaut “wannabe” as a kid.
Here at last was my chance to talk to a genuine missle scientist and ask all my questions about space flight! He was patient and shared some incredible behind-the-scenes stories, including his role in the last Apollo space flight. But at one point I hit a nerve when I brought up what I thought was a simple “margin of error” question.
“What are the tolerances you build into the tragectory when you blast off and head to the moon?” I asked him. “For example, after you blast off, could you be just a little off, say like a couple of degrees off on your flight path, without it being such a huge problem?”
Out came his briefcase and his hybrid handheld calculator that would make a Texas Instruments T3000 blush and feel like a slide rule. In wnet the “very approximate” distance of 217,614 miles from earth to the moon (depending on the time of year and apoge of the moon’s orbit around the earth, of course). Fingers flew furiously for a few moments as some Einsteinian calculation continued.
“Be just two degrees off from when you blast off, and roughly talking into account the time and distance traveled,” he said as he turned his calculator toward me, “and you’ll miss not only your point of orbital entry, but you’ll miss the moon by a measly 11,121 miles.”
I wrote down that number on a torn off page of a USA Today that served as an impromptu notepad. “11,121.” I finally left my new NASA friend in peace, but I’ve never forgotten his conclusion or what it can tell us about the most important relationships and areas of our lives.
Add in enough time and distance, and be just two degrees off and you’ll miss your target by miles. I think that thought impacted me so much because it seemed to answer why and how the church of Ephesus had lost her first love. Just be two degrees off from a right heart attitude, add in enough time and distance, and an entire church can end up miles from God’s heart. John Trent, “How a 2 Degree Change Can Ruin or Renew Your Life,” HeartShift, 16-17
KneEmail: “Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place–unless you repent.” Revelation 2.4-5
Bible reading for 06.13.11: John 21; Ezra 6-8
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Father

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john-julian2.jpgWHEN A MAN abdicates his calling as a father, the world suffers the effects…
Julian Lennon, son of the late Beatles pop idol John Lennon, is a classic example. In his early twenties, Julian made his musical debut with a best-selling album. Then, to everyone’s shock, he suddenly stopped recording altogether. Seven years later, when he finally released a second album, he talked with a reporter about struggling to find his calling.
Julian’s mother and father had divorced when he was five, and after that he saw his father, John, perhaps a dozen times. “He walked out the bloody door and was never around,” Julian snapped. “I’d admire him on TV–listen to his words and opinions. But for someone who was praised for peace and love and and wasn’t able to keep that at home, that’s hypocrisy.”
As the reporter notes, “Julian became a self-taught musician. His father never game him a music lesson.” In the son’s words, “We sat down once and maybe he played five chords–that was that… The only thing he ever taught me was how not to be a father.”
His hatred for his father blinded Julian Lennon to his own calling, and the world suffered the lost of his talent for seven years. Gordon Dalby, “THE PAST – Healing the Wounds,” The Transformation of a Man’s Heart, 59-60
KneEmail: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22.16
Bible reading for 05.31.11: John 12.1-26; 2 Chronicles 13, 14
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Books

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books.jpgSOLOMON TOLD IT right when he said, “Of making many books there is no end” (Ecclesiastes 12:12)…
The number of books extant today would dwarf any library Solomon ever saw or imagined. We have old books, new books, reprints, classics, even e-books. Now you can purchase a hand held device and wirelessly download entire books to it for reading anywhere, at your convenience-a virtual library in your pocket. If we were to take time to count all the volumes in our homes, we might be surprised how many books accumulate over the years.
As a preacher, my religious library has grown with time, including hundreds of volumes of greater and lesser value (though it is still small compared to many). Some I would hate to part with. Others just occupy shelf space. In younger days, I was driven to build up a library, thinking that more books translated into more advantage to a preacher. These days, it is only occasionally that a book is added to the collection and I am more motivated to actually read what is on the shelf, rather than be on the lookout for something new to place on the shelf.
Good books can aid immeasurably in Bible study, depending on the caliber of their content, and assuming they are read with a discerning eye, educated in the Scriptures. Though a fan of helpful books, I was, nevertheless, struck by an observation that Alexander Campbell made about his father:
“In my boyhood, when entering into his study, in which he had a large and well-assorted library, I was wont to wonder on seeing, with a very few exceptions, only his Bible and Concordance on the table, with a simple outfit of pen, ink, and paper. Whether he had read all these volumes, and cared nothing more for them, or whether he regarded them as wholly useless, I presumed not to inquire, and dared not to decide. But such was the fact” (Memoirs of Elder Thomas Campbell, p. 271).
Isn’t that really what it ought to come down to? For all that can be said in favor of things like commentaries (bad examples of which can do much harm), there is nothing to take the place of a man alone with his Bible. It is easy for our perceptions to be colored by something read elsewhere, and we may end up missing what the Bible actually says because we have been helped into a misunderstanding by an unhelpful book (or article, preacher, etc.). Whatever benefit we reap from other sources, we will always need open Bibles, prayerful hearts, and minds keen on learning exactly what God wrote. And, perhaps, the church would be in better shape if, along with having his honesty of heart, more of our preachers had desks like Thomas Campbell’s. Weylan Deaver at: http://wdeaver.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/of-making-many-books/
KneEmail: “I will delight myself in Your statutes;I will not forget Your word.” Psalm 119:16
Bible reading for 03.21.11: Luke 1.21-38; Joshua 7 – 9
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Ask

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down syndrome girl.jpgMILTON WAS FLYING on a plane from Atlanta to Dallas…
He happened to have the middle of the three seats on one side of the aisle. To his right, sitting next to the window, was a young girl who obviously had Down’s syndrome. She began to ask him some simple but almost offensive questions.
“Mister,” she said, “did you brush your teeth this morning?”
Milton, very shocked at the question, squirmed around a bit and then said, “Well, yes, I brushed my teeth this morning.”
The young girl said, “Good, ’cause that’s what you’re supposed to do.” Then she asked, “Mister, do you smoke?”
Again, Milton was a little uncomfortable, but he told her with a little chuckle that he didn’t.
She said, “Good, ’cause smoking will make you die.” Then she said, “Mister, do you love Jesus?”
Milton was really caught by the simplicity and the forthrightness of the little girl’s questions. He smiled and said, “Well, yes, I do love Jesus.”
The little girl with Down’s Syndrome smiled and said, “Good, ’cause we’re all supposed to love Jesus.”
About that time, just before the plane was ready to leave, another man came and sat down on the aisle seat next to Milton and began to read a magazine. The little girl Milton again and said, “Mister, ask him if he brushed his teeth this morning.”
Milton was really uneasy with that one, and said that he didn’t want to do it. But she kept nudging him and saying, “Ask him! Ask him!” So Milton turned to the man seated next to him and said, “Mister, I don’t mean to bother you, but my friend here wants me to ask you if you brushed your teeth this morning.”
The man looked startled, of course. But when he looked past Milton and saw the young girl sitting there, he could tell her good intentions, so he took her question in stride and said with a smile, “Well, yes, I brushed my teeth this morning.”
As the plane taxied onto the runway and began to take off, the young girl nudged Milton once more and said, “Ask him if he smokes.” And so, good-naturedly, Milton did, and the man said that he didn’t smoke.
As the plane was lifting into the air, the little girl nudged Milton once again and said, “Ask him if he loves Jesus.”
Milton said, “I can’t do that. That’s too personal. I don’t feel comfortable saying that to him.”
But the girl smiled and insisted, “Ask him! Ask him!”
Milton turned to the fellow one more time and said, “Now she wants to know if you love Jesus…”
The man could have responded like he had to the two previous questions — with a smile on his face and little chuckle in his voice. And he almost did.
But then the smile on his face disappeared, and his expression became serious. Finally he said to Milton, “You know, in all honesty, I can’t say that I do. It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just that I don’t know Him. I don’t know how to know Him. I’ve wanted to be a person of faith all my life, but I haven’t known how to do it. And now I’ve come to a time in my life when I really need that very much.”
As the plane soared through the skies between Atlanta and Dallas, Milton listened to the fellow talk about the brokenness in his life. Then he began a Bible study and explained how to become a person of faith.
And he did all of that because a little girl with Down’s Syndrome had asked him to ask the fundamental question that all Christians should be finding a way to communicate, “Do you love Jesus?” Stan Toler, “God Has Never Failed Me, But He’s Sure Scared Me To Death A Few Times.”
KneEmail: “And He said to them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” Mark 16.15
Bible reading for 01.07.11:
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