Best Laid Plans

Well, this morning was going to be the morning I got back up to my 1 mile run. Unfortunately, my moose dog, in his exuberance in thinking he was going to run with me, crashed into my 12 year old dog, and she injured her foot. She wasn't limping too bad, so I thought I would give her a try. I kept a slow pace and she made it 1/3 of a mile . . . until she spotted the Garfield cat behind a hedge and start to go after it. I was still running and pulled on the leash, but she was determined. She ended up slipping on a mow strip and walking most of the rest of the way. We had a nice walk with a little running mixed in. There's always tonight, or tomorrow, maybe by myself.

So today will be finishing painting Kristen's room, the ceiling and trim, moving things in, receiving our double ovens, meeting with some landscapers, drum lessons, and hooking up Kristen's wall unit to the wall. A full day for sure.

Let's continue on with This Little Church Went to Market by Gary Gilley. This chapter is on Entertainment.

One researcher discovered that the word 'fun' was of 'recent origin and that no other language had an exact equivalent to the English meaning, leading him to speculate that fun was neither readily understood nor fully accepted until the twentieth century. It is interesting to do a word study on the words 'laugh' and 'laughter', as found in the Bible. While these words are found a couple of dozen times, they are almost always used in a negative sense - usually of one who is expressing scorn or mockery (e.g. Ps. 2:4) Only three times is laughter portrayed as something clearly positive. (Ps. 126:2, Prov. 14:13, Eccles. 3:4). Additionally, none of the great personalities of Biblical times are ever said to have laughed as an expression of joy and happiness. Jesus wept, but we never hear of him laughing.

It may be hard for us to imagine today, but right up until the end of the nineteenth century, the most important course in an American student's college career was moral philosophy, or today what we call 'ethics'. The course was seen as the crowning unit the senior year, usually taught by the college president himself. As James Monroe, the fifteenth president of the United States, said of such classes, 'The question to be asked at the end of an educational step is not, "What has the student learned?" but "What has the student become?"

The problem is this - Christians have been seduced and trained by the same forces that have enticed society as a whole. Too many Christians, just like their unsaved counterparts, are impressed by appearances rather than structure; are seeking thrills and excitement rather than substance; are more apt to respond to emotional manipulation than to rational discourse.

There is no doubt, in other words, that religion can be made entertaining. The question is, by doing so, do we destroy it. The problem is that the main business of entertainment is to please the crowd, but the main purpose of authentic Christianity is to please the Lord. Both the Bible and history have repeatedly shown that it is seldom possible to do both at the same time, for very long.

The author of Hebrews, addressing a whole different set of issues that had left his Christian audience immature and ineffective, called for this very thing. 'Solid food', he wrote, 'is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good from evil' (Heb. 5:14). There was no shortcut then, as there is none now, to maturity and discernment - solid food, in the form of in-depth study and application of the Word of God, is needed.

Yet, God desires his people to consider, reason, analyze and study. He has given us his Word in propositional form: a Word that must be carefully dissected if it is to be understood. (2 Tim. 2:15).

Tomorrow's chapter will be on the Market-Driven Philosophy. This one may have to cover a couple of days, as there is a lot to it. Have a blessed, beautiful, sunny Friday!