Bobby Griffith

It’s an amazing aspect of being human.
We long for stories.
They make us laugh, cry, and experience every emotion in between.
We spend billions of dollars to be told stories in various forms of media.
Why?
We long for the complete story. Every story tells us about an aspect of our humanity from things we are capable of doing to things we wish were possible. Stories engage our senses and take us too a different place.
The beauty of stories, even the worst ones, is that they reflect some aspect of the image of God in man. They reflect something that we can relate to and something that we feel.
Through the characters in stories we turn into a world where the hero is something we think we can aspire to, or the villain is someone we are fascinated with because we sense our capabilities of evil.
There’s a problem with stories though. They can’t tell the whole picture. They fill a little aspect inside us, but they cannot complete us.
One story does. The real story of Jesus coming to accomplish redemption for humanity. Every story in the Bible points in some way, implicitly or explicitly, points to our need for redemption or God’s provision of redemption for humanity.
This is wonderful because God’s story, creation, fall, redemption and consummation can speak to us in a way that Star Wars, Crime and Punishment, the Da Vinci Code or The Illiad cannot. It speaks to us in a way that changes our lives and leads us to a real relationship with the Creator of heaven and earth.
This brings me to preaching.
Those who preach God’s Word must not be afraid to go to the stories in the Bible and use them to explain how they speak to the human condition.
It’s not just post-moderns who need to hear stories, but everyone. Sometimes in conservative churches, we love to preach epistles and prophets and use the instructional material to teach doctrine and warnings to the people of God.
While we do need doctrine and warnings, we must realize that we can derrive these from the stories in the Bible.
We must use them, and use them not in a moralistic way, but in a way that is relevent and transcends time and context.
The message in these stories is timeless and can speak to any culture in any context in any generation.

Twilight is upon me and soon night must fall.

Last night was Billy Graham’s last sermon in the US and probably his last one ever. He’s been preaching for decades and I must say I’m sad to see him go.
I haven’t been a “fan” or “follower” of the man, and I realize he’s not perfect, no one is, but at least there has been someone that points people to Christ and Christianity in such a public manner. Yes, Rev. Graham’s theology may not be perfect and he has probably “compromised” in some peoples’ minds, but still the simple truth of the Gospel has been proclaimed before many, many audiences. He has also served as a visible picture of our accountability to God which was put forth to the American public every time he appeared on TV or on the radio. People know how he is, even those who are not Christians and when they see him they are confronted, directly or indirectly with the Truth of the Gospel.

It seems like he doesn’t have much time on this earth, and that he’ll never preach to an audience again, and I feel a little sad on the inside. On one hand I know that, even as someone who’s watched a sum total of two sermons of his on TV, I’ll miss seeing his presence in the media, but on the other hand, I will be happy to see a saint go to glory.

It’s just weird. You grow up seeing someone in the news on TV, mentioned in sermons, articles and whatnot, and you never really expect them to leave. But now Billy Graham is leaving to fade from our minds and away from the public eye.

I didn’t either.

I can’t figure it out. When the NBA was on I was glued to the TV during Jr. High, High School and through College as well. Now, I could care less.

Back in the day (ages 10-14 or so) my room was covered in Magic Johnson posters and Lakers stuff, now you’d be hard pressed to find anything NBA related in my possessions.

I still watch football, NCAA & NFL and I still watch MLB baseball, but I don’t watch the NBA.
I don’t know if I could name 25 NBA players, but I can name starting pitching rotations of many MLB teams, and I can name many, many, NFL lineups as well.

The NBA just doesn’t have the attraction that it used to.
I watched a sum total of about 10 minutes this whole season, and maybe 20 minutes last season. I don’t care about it anymore.

I think that the NBA has that figured out as well. I noticed in a magazine that you could buy highlight DVDs for Father’s Day of Jordan, Bird, Barkley, and Johnson. Those guys are retired.
What about current stars?
I only see Lebron James in commercials. When I was a teen it used to be that you would see commercials by more than just one NBA star. Think Mr. Robinson’s neighborhood, Right Guard, McDonald’s and hordes of Nike commercials.
Now, I see very little if any NBA related commercials.

Am I watching the wrong channels?
Have I just grown out of the NBA?
Or did the NBA leave me?

Maybe I’ll figure it out someday. In the meantime, I’ll watch some baseball and keep up with college recruiting and the NFL.

My wife and I rescued a rabbit from the wild. Had we not intervened she would have died and not be well over 1 year old as she is now.
It’s kind of interesting to me to see her. She is getting tamer and tamer as time goes by.
She knows where her food comes from. (and believe me she eats better than 99% of domestic rabbits)
She knows that we give her good things.
She knows that we let her have free reign of our apartment, hours upon hours a day, except she’s not allowed in the room.

Yet, despite all of the good provisions we have given this little rabbit: life, food, shelter, love, attention, spoiling, and so on and so on, she still doesn’t trust us completely.
She still tries to run in the bedroom the second the door cracks open.

Even though she is treated better than 99% of all rabbits, she still runs away when we try to pet her and so on.

She initiates attention on her terms.

Sometimes I feel like I treat God that way. I have many, many good gifts in life, but still I have a tendancy to not trust him, and sometimes, even to look the other way and do my own thing.
And it’s funny really, I see this played out in my little bunny, and do it myself. All the while God sees me as more than a pet; I’m his child, and sometimes I wander, yet he keeps loving, feeding, caring, protecting and keeping me.

Life is beautiful.

John 4 tells us a very familiar story about Jesus approaching a Samaritan women at Jacob’s well. Many of us are familiar with the picture of salvation as “living water” that Jesus employs to show the woman that salvation quenches that inner thirst for significance, spiritual healing/renewal and faith in the One greater than ourselves which brings us eternal salvation.

But stop for one moment and put ourselves in Jesus’ position. Here Jesus intentionally shows love and compassion to someone that he knew was divorced five times, not of the “right race” and was a woman.
He still talked to her.

This was taboo in his day.
He still shared the Gospel.
She was an outcast.
He showed her love and compassion.
She still did not understand.
He continued to reveal salvation to her.
She did not deserve it.

Jesus teaches us a lesson in this story. What is it? I think it’s obvious, but not emphasized. We all have friends, relatives and people we know who need the Gospel. There are those people who are like this woman- outcasts in our society; people that we “shouldn’t be talking to”, but the example of Jesus shows us that even the “worst” person isn’t outside the redemptive reach of the Gospel.

I think that is good fuel for evangelism, and it’s a good reminder that a God who saves the worst of people is a loving and gracious God, and that also leads us to thankfulness rather than cockiness when thinking about our salvation.

Yesterday when I was in Western Pennsylvania, my wife and I attended church with her parents.
It was a service that served to kick off the summer season, as well as celebrate Father’s Day. The interesting thing was that this service was outdoors. Now, what made it interesting to me was the ambiance.

This church has been around since the late 1800’s/early 1900’s and is in the vein of the classic rural American country church. Having the service outdoors gave me this overwhelming sense of community and connection with the people gathered and with the American church of the past.

I am not claiming that there was something truly mystical going on, but I did get a sense of what it would have been like to worship “back in the day” with a goat singing along with the congregation, and the rooster crowing while the pastor was preaching his sermon.

It just seemed to take me back to another time before internet, automobiles and so on; something simple and something beautiful.

Now, I do not mean that our modern conveniences are bad and should be avoided, but I think that it’s good every so often to slow down, do something different, connect with each other and connect with our past.

It seems like the Baptists aren’t the only ones who believe in this concept.

PCA Assembly Rejects Resolution about Removing Christian Children from Public Schools
Chattanooga, Tenn. – The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America voted on Thursday, June 16, to reject a resolution to encourage Christian parents to remove their children from public schools. The resolution was offered by the Rev. Steven Warhurst of Kingsport, Tenn.

The resolution asked the General Assembly to “encourage all her officers and members to remove their children from the public schools and see to it that they receive a thoroughly Christian education, for the glory of God and the good of Christ’s church.”

The Bills and Overture Committee recommended that the Assembly reject the resolution and approved the following reason, “We strongly affirm that it is the responsibility of Christian parents to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, it is not appropriate for the General Assembly to make such a recommendation as contained in [the] Personal Resolution to all the members of the PCA. Rather, the education of covenant children is best left to the wisdom of Christian parents under the pastoral guidance of local church Sessions.”

It looks like my denomination will be voting on a resolution encouraging PCA members to not send their children to public schools. I remember when the SBC tried this a year or so ago at their convention.

Here is the text of the resolution.

Whereas, The Bible commands fathers to bring up their children in the training and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4), and all parents who have had a child baptized in the Presbyterian Church in America have taken a vow to strive by all the means of God’s appointment to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (BCO 56-5), and
A truly Christian education begins with the fear of the Lord (Proverbs 9:10), and teaches children to think biblically about all of life (2 Corinthians 10:5; Romans 12:2; Deuteronomy 6:6-9), and
Whereas, The public school system does not offer a Christian education, but officially claims to be “neutral” with regard to Christ, a position that Christ Himself said was impossible (Luke 11:23), and
Whereas, The public schools are by law humanistic and secular in their instruction, and as a result the attending children receive an education without positive reference to the Triune God, and
Whereas, Some courageous teachers in our congregations disregard this law. Obeying God rather than men, they try to give their students a truly Christian education (Acts 4:18-20). This resolution should not be construed to discourage these adult believers who faithfully labor as missionaries to unbelieving colleagues and students. However, these rare exceptions should not lead anyone to believe the public schools are regularly giving children a truly Christian education.
Whereas, Sending thousands of PCA children as “missionaries” to their unbelieving teachers and classmates has failed to contribute to increasing holiness in the public schools. On the contrary, the Nehemiah Institute documents growing evidence that the public schools are successfully converting covenant children to secular humanism, and Whereas, We are squandering a great opportunity to instruct these children in the truth of God’s word and its application to all of life;
Therefore, be it resolved that the 33rd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America encourages all her officers and members to remove their children from the public schools and see to it that they receive a thoroughly Christian education, for the glory of God and the good of Christ’s church.

I was unaware this was on the docket for business this year at the general assembly and right now, I am not sure what I would vote if I were in a position to do so right now.
I completely understand the reasoning behind this resolution and I firmly believe that public education does more harm than good in many places, but at the same time, I am sympathetic to people, like my wife, who went to a rural public school and did not encounter the broad secular humanism that goes on in larger school districts. And what about those kids who do go to public schools and make real impact? Do we want to just eliminate that? Granted, I realize that I am thinking of a slim number, but I still think that the Gospel can impact anyplace at anytime. I also see this as something that goes against one of the main reasons I was initially attracted to the PCA: changing culture. I didn’t think that we’d give up like that.

I know that this resolution has at least one big backer, Dr. D. James Kennedy, who has more influence than most do in the PCA and in evangelical circles in general, but I don’t know how this resolution will go. I guess I’ll see on Friday.

Also: you have to understand that I come from a perspective where I do not have children, and I imagine I will see this issue differently in the future, but for now, I just don’t know what to decide. I see good things about this resolution, as well as bad things.

Lately, I have been looking at myself in the mirror and when I do, I am confronted with the fact that I do not take care of my body in a way that glorifies God.

Right now, I would be more healthy and probably happier, if I exercised more, ate better, and dropped about 15-20 pounds or so. In December 2001, I looked at myself in a picture and saw that I was overweight, so I proceeded to lose 30lbs by May 2002. That was great and all, but I didn’t really do it for the right reasons, although I secretly think it helped me get a wife. j/k

Anyway, as I look in my mirror, I am confronted that I do not take care of my body in way that pleases God. While, I fully believe I can eat a Hardee’s thickburger to the glory of God, I think that I’ve eaten one too many of late. I eat too much fast food, too much ice cream and too much junk. Now, I am not saying that everyone who is overweight is sinning, or not taking care of their bodies because there are legitimate reasons, I am mereley pointing out that like so many Americans, I’ve succumbed to the easy availability of food that’s not good for me.

I’m still trying to figure out how to deal with that. I don’t think it’s a good idea to blame my rural roots, or the easiness of fast food. I think it’s deeper than that. I don’t think that taking care of my body is a high enough priority. That has to change. Too often we Christians preach against this and that, all the while we destroy our health by eating whatever we want. I don’t want to be the guy who preaches on sin while feasting at the buffet the night before. That’s not the Gospel in action.

I am reminded of Anthony Hoekema’s Created In God’s Image where he talks about exercise and weight as an applicitory response to realizing that we are created in God’s image. God gave us bodies which are good gifts, and the Christian more than anyone else, should be the one who realizes this and applies this concept to their lives. When that happens, we seek to take care of our bodies, not because we want to look like a cover model, or actor, but because we know that God created us in his image and has given us good bodies to take care of.

I’m still learning this.
I need to learn it more.

Click on the picture below for a great contest that won’t result in spam. I’m being serious, no spam.