The Pacific Gospel Mission

Since 1877, the Pacific Gospel Mission has cared and preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the men and women of Chicago.  The mission was founded and funded by George and Sarah Clark from the very beginning and would quickly become a mission of massive size.  As a result of the increase, the Clarks, who had been bearing the cost of the mission, were unable to fund it any longer.

Despite their best efforts to fundraise, the financial burden came to a head to such a degree that if the Clarks did not garner the money, the mission would have to close its doors.  The Clarks spent the whole night on their knees in the house praying that God would provide the money to save the mission.

In the morning, when the couple emerged from its Morgan Park home, they looked with awe at their yard.  Filling the yard were hundreds of the highest quality mushrooms.  This was made even more remarkable because not only had there never been mushrooms in their yard before but it wasn't even season for them.  The couple spent all morning picking the mushrooms, then brought and sold them to the chefs at the Palmer House, the famed hotel.  The Pacific Gospel Mission was able to keep its doors open, all because of the providential hand of God Almighty.

The essence and point of this story is fairly self-evident.  God is a God who provides for those who earnestly seek after Him.  This is one of the keys to the Christian life.  No matter our circumstance, if we are seeking to live in the center of God's will and we are worshiping Him in faith and humility, He does and will bless us for our faithfulness.  Let us then continually and persistently come to God with our requests, big and small, so that we may be blessed by the Lord!

The Story of Fanny Crosby

Throughout the centuries, there have been many remarkable and gifted Christians who have, because of their gifting and faithfulness, left indelible marks upon Christianity.  One such person is Frances Jane Crosby, known more famously as Fanny Crosby.

Fanny lived her life in the tumultuous frontierism of the 19th century.  She lived a simple life as a wife and a missionary worker, but she will be remembered as one of the greatest hymn lyricists of all time, rivaled only by Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley, having penned over 8,000 hymns in her lifetime.  In fact, towards the end of her life, she was so prolific that she started to publish hymns under pseudonyms just so her name would not be the only name in the hymnal.  This remarkable feat is brought into a greater light when we consider that she was blind from infancy.

Although Fanny had eyesight at birth, when she was an infant she became very ill.  And, unbeknownst to the family, a man claiming to be a doctor prescribed that her eyes be salved with hot mustard.  The result was that Fanny became blind and spent her whole life as such.

There is a story of a pastor coming up to Fanny after a service and telling her, "Fanny, it is a great shame that God has blessed you with such gifts but neglected to give you your sight."  To which Fanny snapped back with laughter, "Ha, if I could have wished for something before I was born, I would have wished to be born blind for when I die, the first face I see will be my precious Savior."

What a beautiful sentiment.  And my prayer is that we would take the same mind among us.  It is also valuable to be reminded at the value of history in our faith.

Rosa Parks and Preparing for Opposition

On December 1st, 1955, a young black woman refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus to make room for white bus riders.  The woman's name was Rosa Parks and her famous act of civil disobedience became an emblem for the Civil Rights Movement.  Although history will remember Parks for her braveness in the face of vociferous racism and systemic segregation, history would be wrong to think that Parks' actions were flippant or whimsical.

For over ten years, Parks had been a leading member of the local NAACP chapter.  She had also been involved with many demonstrations and community events that pursued the end of segregation in schools and in public.  In fact, Parks had been studying other bus boycotts, even being arrested in Baton Rouge, Louisiana a year earlier.  Truly, Rosa Parks had dedicated and prepared for her momentous and historic act of bravery.

Rosa Parks had prepared for years to be brave in the face of her opposition, and when the time came for her to seize the moment and act, she did.  Parks is a great example of courage in the face of adversity, but her preparation is also a key to her protest's efficacy.  Similarly, Christians face an adverse and oppositional world.  How we prepare for the those times that require bravery can ensure that our acts of courage for Christ will not be in vain but will have their maximum effect.

The point is intentionality for purpose.  Training and preparation for Christianity means prayer, counsel, Bible Study, fellowship, and service.  This is the training regiment that will prepare us for maximum Kingdom effect.  Let us then look to the examples from history, like Rosa Parks, who stood for the right things in the face of certain opposition, but did so after study and preparation.

Wilber McLean & Jonah

On July 18, 1861 the most destructive war in American history began on the farmstead of Wilmer McLean in Virginia.  The battle became known as the First Battle of the Bull Run.  McLean, a 47-year-year-old retired Virginia militia man, was too-old and too-apathetic towards the Confederate cause to join in the war effort.

Add to this that the war's first battle was fought on his front lawn and McLean had had enough.  He sold his estate and moved some 120 miles south to a small, rural town in Virginia that McLean thought would be too-insignificant and secluded to ever have to deal with the growing war: Appomattox County, Virginia.

However, despite his best efforts to disappear and get away from the war, on April 9, 1865, Generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant sat down at a table inside the parlor of McLean's house to finalize the terms of the Confederacy's utter surrender and the end of the Civil War.  No matter the lengths that McLean went to get away from the war, he couldn't escape it.  He was there at the very beginning and the very end.  Later, McLean is quoted as saying, "The war began in my front yard, and ended in my front parlor."

McLean's story is one of those great tales of how inescapable destiny can be.  Although the particulars are vastly different, the well-known story of Jonah tells the same thing, but instead of trying to run from an impending civil war, Jonah tried to run from God Himself.  However, no matter how far Jonah tried to run from his destiny to prophecy to Nineveh, he could no get away from God.

This should be a reminder to us all that what God has for is what He has for us and when we try to escape of run away from those things, all we are doing is adding consternation and pain in the long run.  Instead, we should make an effort to seek after God's specific will for our lives and to consistently pursue that will in earnest.

Christian Family Reunion

Today I am in Williston, North Dakota for a family reunion.  Because this reunion is for my wife's family, I find myself in a situation that lends itself to observation and contemplation.  Four generations of family are gathered together for the purpose of reconnection and recollection.  To be sure, the focus on reminiscence centers on the value of heritage and it brings to mind the importance of remembering the generations past.

Biblically speaking, the concept of heritage and ancestry is one of those pivotal but oft-neglected pieces of the biblical world.  For instance, most of the Old Testament deals with ancestry.  From Adam through the Patriarchs and the kings, ancestry is important.  There are a couple of reasons that understanding lineage is a good and necessary thing for every human being to delve into.

The first is for the value of information.  Having an understanding of our ancestors can go a long way in explaining ourselves. Everything from biology to intelligence to spirituality can be traced through our ancestry.  Our society values health history when making medical decisions.  We should also value heart history when dealing with spiritual decisions too.  maybe if we valued it more, we would not keep making the same mistakes from generation to generation.

Another reason that we should study our past is for the value it has in teaching.  Consider the eleventh chapter of the book of Hebrews.  The writer spends a considerable amount of literary real estate using the great persons of the past to explain faith and belief.  This should prompt us to look to those great figures of history as inspiration, for we are related through Jesus to all Christians past.  Let us never forget that reality.

When we read the Bible or the writings of great past Christians or even when we spend time learning about our own biological ancestry, we should take to heart the value that those who have come and gone before can have in directing, guiding, and inspiring our lives.  Let us then take the time to consider our pasts so as to be informed about our presents and to be inspired for our futures!

Just like Josiah

Imagine finding something earth-shatteringly important.  Like when looking through old paper work, you discover that years ago you inherited a mansion, or that you had a twin brother that was taken away at birth.  What would your reaction be?  Would you seek that thing out with every bit of energy you possess?  How far would you go to make sure that you had the information correct?  To what lengths would you go?

Something like this happened in ancient Israel.  For years, the kings of Israel had been drifting farther away from the Lord and towards syncretism, idolatry, and sin.  The kingdom that David had established had been divided after the death of Solomon and, while the northern kingdom had always been sinful, overtime, even the southern kingdom fell away from what God had desired of them.

In fact, the people had become so idolatrous and sinful that even the Torah, the Book of the Law, which was the foundation for all of their faith had been lost.  Not even the priests, the keepers of the Law, knew where the Book had gone.  Throughout the Book of the Kings (1 & 2 Kings), Israel and Judah become increasingly apathetic and apostasy, eventually being deported at the hands of the Assyrians, and later the Babylonians.  It is at this point in the nation's history when a young, God-fearing king ascends to the throne.  His name is Josiah and his story is told in 2 Kings, chapters 22 and 23.

Eight years old when he begins his thirty-one years reign in Jerusalem, the Word says that Josiah, "did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and walked in all the way of David his father, and he did not turn aside to the right or to the left (2 Kings 22:2)."  He was a good, godly king.  In the eighteenth year of his reign, he decides to spend some money and for some much needed repair of the Temple.  It is at this time that while doing the repairs, the Book of the Law is found.

Although it is both shocking and appalling to think that the Israelites had become so idolatrous that they had actually "lost" the Book of the Law, what is remarkable about the story and about Josiah is his response to the Book's finding.  Josiah does two stunning things in reaction to discovering the Book of the Law that have immediate contemporary applications for us.

The first thing that Josiah did was to have the Book read in its entirety both to himself and to the whole nation.  Josiah understood immediately that the Law was God's Word for Israel and, though their forefathers had abandoned it, he intended to reinstitute it as the Book for Israel's faith.  He didn't do this half-heartedly.  No, he knew that God's Word demands full allegiance with no hint of turning.  Moreover, Josiah was excited and energetic to do this.  We should take a mind like this when we consider instituting God's Word in our lives.  And we should do so with as much fervent intent and energy as Josiah.

The second thing he did was to destroy all the idol worship that had pervaded Israel.  He destroyed altars, killed priests, and purged the nation of the sin of idolatry.  This is huge.  Think of the effect of such a decision.  Not only was his move bad for the economy, as idol worship was big business, but also it challenged all of the Israelite idol worshipers to get their act straight.  We should do this same thing, definitively purge the idolatry and sin both from within ourselves and from within our churches.  While we should do so with grace and gentleness, we are commanded to take seriously God's call to purity and holiness.

Again, the Old Testament should not be neglected for its antiquity but studied for its usefulness and worth.  All of Scripture speaks to the glory of God and Christ Jesus.  Therefore, we need to put on our miner's hats and interpreter's tool-belts to dig into the Scripture for the endless worth thereof, both practical and theological.  Let us then be like Josiah, exalting the Word of God and striving with all passion to live it out!

Jeremiah: Necessary History

Christians have a tendency towards the New Testament.  This is a natural reaction to the fact that our faith is based on the life and work of Christ, which is chronicled in the Gospels and applied in the letters of Paul, Peter, John, James, Jude, etc.  However, as per Jesus' own words, He did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets but to complete them (Matt. 5:17).  And if we, as Christians, are to have a greater understanding of Christ, we need to be willing to mine through the books of Old Testament for their worth, both in practical matters as well as theological.  The book of Jeremiah is one such book worth studying.  It is not only valuable for its significant contribution to prophecy about Christ but also for the history of Israel and Jeremiah himself.

Called to be a prophet as a young boy (1:6), Jeremiah grew up in a time in which Israel was in a maelstrom of tumult and turmoil (around 590 BC).  More than a century earlier, the northern kingdom, which included 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel, was conquered and taken into exile by the Assyrians.  The southern kingdom, however, based in Jerusalem, was protected by God.  The people responded in haughtiness, believing that God's providential hand could never be removed because of their covenant, despite the prophesies made by Isaiah indicting them for their sin.

As a result of such arrogance, the "prophets" of Jeremiah's time looked superciliously at the words of Jeremiah, which were prophesies of judgment to come at the hands of the Babylonian empire, newly revitalized under the leadership of Nebuchadnezzar.  As a result of such disdain for his work, Jeremiah was ignored, mocked, beaten, and even thrown in prison.  Despite such harsh treatment, Jeremiah stayed perseverant to the call that God had given him and, in the end, his prophesies were proven when the Babylonians finally sacked Jerusalem, first in 597 and definitively in 587.

Jeremiah's contribution to the corpus of Scripture is twofold: first is in regards to judgement; second, in regards to redemption.  Jeremiah preached repentance to Judah in order to maintain the covenant that God had provided for them.  He prophesied judgement because of their increasing sin and lustful sin.  However, Judah turned in pride and self-delusion away from God and was punished justly for their conceited unbelief.  But that is not the whole story.  In Jeremiah 31:31-34, Jeremiah prophesies of a new covenant that God will inaugurate that surpasses the old covenant in its scope and its effect.  As Christians, we know this new covenant to be made in the blood of Christ and introduced at the Last Supper.

To be sure, this has been a brief introduction, a cursory synopsis, of some of the important points of note in regards to the book of Jeremiah.  The purpose has been to show the significance for Christians to study and to examine the books of the Old Testament because they speak of God, and of Christ Jesus.  We should be eager to learn more about them, then, because in doing so we will be growing in our knowledge of God.  Let us then dig into the Word so as to dig into God Himself!

History Study for Bible Study

In the 4th Century B.C. the world was a disconnected collection of disparate city-state nations, separated by geography, language, culture, and history.  In reality, apart from limited long-distance trading, the far eastern part of the world in India barely knew of their western counterparts situated around the Mediterranean and vice versa.  At this time of disjointed humanity, a certain Macedonian prince rose to power in Greece.

The young prince seized his father's impressive military force at the age of twenty and began his lifelong campaign to conquer the world from one end to the other and to hold it under a single Greek banner.  He had a deep conviction to unite all peoples under Greek culture and spent the whole of his life for this task.  The prince was a remarkable general and tactician.  At numerous skirmishes, the prince's forces were dramatically outnumbered yet, by his decisively genius tactics, his army was victorious.  Moreover, he always rode his horse at the front of the battle, ensuring each of his dedicated soldiers that the prince would never put them into any danger that he himself would not be willing to accept.

As a result of his consistent willingness to set an intrepid example coupled with his constantly expert military strategies, his troops followed him with a worshipful fervor, believing their prince to be a descendant of the gods and heroes of old.  The prince succeeded in conquering land from the Mediterranean beyond the Hindu Kush mountain range.  Although the prince died mysteriously at the young age of 32, he was successful at making the Greek culture and language the standard in the world.  A feat that was nothing short of revolutionary that set the world on its path for the next several hundred years.  Because of his utter success, history has canonized him as great, Alexander the Great.

Understanding the significance of Alexander in reference to the Bible is a rich field manifold with grain relevant to biblical understanding.  For the brevity of this conversation, reducing the mixture to two main points of importance is in order: the historical account following Alexander's death, and the cultural significance of Hellenization in the spread of the Gospel.  The goal here is by no means exhaustive, just to offer a small sample of the usefulness of historical study to understanding the Bible better.

The history after Alexander's death is necessary information for properly understanding of the last part of the book of Daniel (Ch. 9-12).  Following Alexander's mysterious death, the massive geographical area of his empire was divided into four satrap kingdoms by the general, Perdiccas: the Ptolemaic, the Seleucid, the Pergamum, and the Macedonian.  Unless we recognize these four kingdoms, particularly the Ptolemaic, understanding Daniel's apocalyptic visions that close the book is made nearly impossible.

Secondly, the impact of Hellenization cannot be overstated.  Simply understood, Hellenization is the spread and standardization of Greek culture and language because of the work of Alexander.  This made Greek the language of commerce and trade, particularly across the Mediterranean world.  As a result, the Gospel was able to be presented to many diverse cultures, from Spain to India.  In fact, libraries of books have been written about the Gospel's dependance upon Hellenization for its spread.

While this dialogue has been information-laden but too-brief, the point has been to show the need of historical investigation for the purpose of shedding light on the Bible.  Forming a solid historical basis is a necessary endeavor in interpretation, for if we do not understand the context of the Scripture we are examining, our interpretations will be equally uninformed and ungrounded in reality.

Luckily, we are not without help in this as there are a vast number of resources available to the modern interpreter to help us overcome the time and distance between ourselves and the Bible.  L.P Hartley's saying is still appropriate today, "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."  In essence, we should strive to come to the Bible as the anthology of ancient documents it is.  Let us then press on in discipline and diligence so as to better interpret the Word of God!