Christian Data Resources

Who were the best men in the Bible?  God gives us some hints about this in a couple of often overlooked verses. 

Jeremiah 15:1 says, “Then the LORD said to me, ‘Even though Moses and Samuel were to stand before Me, My heart would not be with this people.’” 

This verse seems to tell us that Moses and Samuel were most effective in prayer.  However, we’re given few details.  Moses often prayed to God, but hardly any of his prayers are recorded in the Bible.  The same goes for Samuel, where the most details we have about his prayer life are in 1 Samuel 8:6″   “But when (the Israelites) said, ‘Give us a king to lead us,’ this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD.” 

Why the lack of details?  I believe it’s because prayer is usually a very personal and private activity, between only the believer and God.  Of course, there is a time for corporate prayer, but most prayer is to be done in our “closet.”  (Matthew 6:6) 

Ezekiel 14:20 says, “Even if Noah, Daniel and Job were (in Jerusalem), they could save neither son nor daughter. They would save only themselves by their righteousness.” 

This implies that the three most obedient men in the Old Testament were Noah, Daniel, and Job.  Their lives should be our role models.  Noah ignored popular opinion as he obeyed God.  Daniel wasn’t afraid to defy earthly authorities as he obeyed god.  Above all, Job refused to sin, even through trials and troubles.  Job 1:22 says, “In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing;”  and, Job 2:10 says, “In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.”

There’s a song that talks about a man who retires from his job after thirty years of faithful service to his company.  Whenever I hear it, I can’t help but think about its spiritual and prophetic implications.  The chorus goes like this:  

Today’s the day I get my gold watch and chain,
Engraved with thirty years of service and my name. 
Men in pin-striped suits and ties,
Shake my hand as they walk by. 
Today’s the day I get my gold watch and chain. 

This man has been been faithful in his duties, waiting every hour of every day, day-after-day, for thirty years.  Finally, the time has come for him to be recognized with his reward.  Likewise, one day, each believer will be recognized in eternity, at the Bema–the judgment seat of Christ.  Each believer’s deeds will be tested with fire.  The hay and chaff will be burnt away, leaving only his pure, just, and precious rewards.  Instead of a gold watch and chain, the believer will receive something of real value, too precious even for us to fully understand in this life. 

Like the engraving on the gold watch, each believer’s rewards will be personalized.  However, a gold watch and chain will seem like nothing compared to these eternal rewards.  This is because the One that the believer is devoted to is so much more powerful than an earthly company. 

We will no longer answer to authority figures wearing pin-striped suits.  Instead we will answer to the ultimate authority.  Here, we are congratulated with a handshake, but in eternity we will live forever with Jesus Christ. 

I can’t wait for the day when I receive that ultimate gold watch and chain.

Emile Durkheim was a secular scholar who claimed that religion emerged out of social gatherings.  Although Christianity is a relationship, not a religion, there is some truth in Durkheim’s claim, even for Christians. 

There is a characteristic of the flesh that gives us an impulse to participate, not only in secular activities, but also in the spiritual realm.  It’s a sociological phenomenon, where mob-mentality takes over, and we’re more comfortable in a crowd, and we adapt to the natural leaders in that crowd.  This can coerce people into feeling something beyond themselves, and then attributing that force to the divine.  Studies have shown this child-like phenomenon to be true, even for adults. 

When we go to church, we need to do so because of obedience and allegiance to God, regardless of what others are doing.  Christianity should never be reduced to social gatherings.

Christmas is an ideal time for giving, although we should exercise the same spirit of giving throughout the year.  Proverbs 11 illustrates why we should be encouraged to give. 

Verse 24 says, “There is one who scatters, and yet increases all the more, And there is one who withholds what is justly due, and yet it results only in want.”  In other words, the giver, as well as the receiver, is blessed.  However, if we pass up opportunities to give, we’ll all be the poorer for it. 

Verse 25 says, “The generous man will be prosperous, and he who waters will himself be watered.”  If we want to prosper, we should give.  It’s like being thirsty.  We can expect our thirst to be quenched by giving a drink to someone else who is thirsty. 

It’s a paradox that only God can understand.  When we give, our wealth is not depleted–instead, we prosper all the more.  It’s like feeding a crowd of people with a single basket of fish and bread.  When food is removed from the basket, it somehow just keeps replenishing itself.  When it comes to giving, there are no losers.

If our national security is only as good as our intelligence reports, then we’re in big trouble. Our first big clue for this was when we invaded Iraq because our intelligence reports confirmed WMDs there.   More recently, intelligence gurus were gathering information from a person thought to be a terrorist, only to discover that he was just a prankster.  With such poor intelligence, Presidents Reagan and Bush (41) wouldn’t have been able to end the Cold War. 

Now we find out that we are not only inept at finding reliable information, but even when we do, we can’t keep a secret.  We entrust the information to people who are only too eager to leak it to WikiLeaks, which, in turn, leaks it to the whole world.  It doesn’t help the situation to have men like Leon Panetta (with no background in intelligence) as the Director of the CIA. 

Imagine being the President of the U.S. as the military officer enters the Oval Office each morning with the latest “intelligence” report.  The first thing I would ask is, “Why should I believe this information?”  Then my next question would be, “Who already knows about this?”  How can the President possibly keep our country safe under these conditions? 

This is not just an embarrassment for our country.  It’s a serious danger to national security.  Unfortunately, in both senses of the word, we do seem to no longer have any background in intelligence.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffet recently weighed in on the issue of the Bush tax cuts.  They said that taxes should be raised on rich people like themselves.  This statement is quite interesting.  At first glance, it appears to be a statement about patriotism and generosity–how willing they are to pay more taxes so that we can have a better America.  However, there’s a deeper, and slightly hidden, meaning to these words. 

If Gates and Buffet really feel like they’re not paying enough taxes, then they should get out their checkbook and write a big check to the Treasury of the United States (and they should do so without letting the press know about it).  After all, what’s a few hundred million dollars out of a $30 billion fortune?  However, they wouldn’t be satisfied with this, because they’re not really speaking out of patriotism and generosity.  They’re actually speaking out of selfishness and greed (and perhaps guilt, as well). 

How can it selfish and greedy to want to pay more taxes?  Well, you see, they know all about how to control money.  Along with their lust for money, they also have a huge lust for power.  It’s not enough for them to be independently wealthy.  It’s not enough to have control over their own money.  As rich as they are, they want more.  They want to have control over other people’s money as well.  They don’t want to just write a check to the IRS.  They want a law that says that other people have to do so as well.  Then they can use their power to influence the way our tax dollars are spent. 

Gates and Buffet have egos almost as big as their fortunes, and they are always in desperate need of a challenge–something, or someone, to conquer.  They used to be challenged by gaining wealth and power.  However, they became so wealthy and powerful that these things no longer challenged them.  Then they became challenged by philanthropy (a worthy goal), but they’re so wealthy that even this is no longer challenging.  When people become this wealthy and powerful, it’s probably only natural to progress to the next step.  Now, instead of being satisfied by spending their own fortunes, they want to spend other people’s (tax) money.

Well, it’s official now.  Health care premiums are skyrocketing.  My company’s employees will pay an average of 15% more this year.  That’s the good news!  The bad news is that some employees will pay “100$ +” for their plans, if they have a PPO.  One of my HR representatives told me that one of our competitors is raising some rates as high as 488%. 

Thank you, Mr. President.

Congress has a real problem.  Congressmen are not reading the bills that are on the floor to be voted on, and they don’t know what’s in it.  Worse than that, however, is what Nancy Pelosi said about the Health Care Bill, “We must pass this bill so we can know what’s in it.”  So, now bills are being passed before they’re written?  First they pass the bill, and then they write the bill.  The result is that they’re routinely passing unconstitutional legislation. 

Indeed, the health care bill was still being refined for months after it was passed, and still nobody knows what’s in it.  I tried to read the bill, and I was unable to dig through all of the legal jargon.  I was unable to understand what was written by the high-powered (and highly paid) attorneys.  This is exactly why health care premiums are going up as much as 488% this year; i.e. the uncertainties of the New Health Care bill. 

It’s no wonder that Congress is spending so much of our money.  The problem with passing a bill before it’s completed is that Congressmen and their aids interpret and refine parts of the bill, and even add high-dollar addendum to it, spending more of every taxpayer money for the Congressman’s pet project in his state.  What’s to keep a Congressman from adding these words to the end of the bill, “The personal income tax rate for all Americans is 90%?” 

This constitiutes unconstitutional legislation.  It’s tinkering with and changing bills after they have been passed.  That’s not the way that the Constitution says that Congress should write laws.  They’re breaking the law, and it’s costing us taxpayers a fortune.

ABC News recently ran a story about two pastors who have become atheists–living a lie, although nobody knows their secret.  They spoke of their struggle in leading their congregations–one has been a Southern Baptist pastor for more than 20 years, and the other one is on the pastoral staff of a small evangelical church in the Bible Belt.  In order to better understand their situations, let’s take a closer look at some of their comments. 

- “The more I read the Bible, the more questions I had.” 

Well, I’m a believer, yet I often feel this way myself.  If we are to remain intellectually honest, how can we help but question things?  It is an unreachable goal for mortal man in a temporal state to try to attain the mind of an infinite God in eternity.  I believe that, as we grow in the faith, we must expect to have answered questions replaced (and perhaps even multiplied) with unanswered ones. 

- One of the men said that he became bothered by “the improbability of stories like ‘Noah’s Ark.’” 

Isn’t it just as improbable that a sinless man would give up His life for someone like me?  Neither can be “scientifically proven.”  The Bible hasn’t changed since this man became a believer. 

- One man was uncomfortable with the attitudes expressed in the Bible regarding women and their place in the world. 

Who cares whether he’s comfortable or not?  His level of comfort has nothing to do with the truth. 

- “Reading the Bible is what led me not to believe in God.” 

Actually, although this is an interesting claim, isn’t it an oxymoron?  If one doesn’t believe in God, then there was no God to inspire the writing of the Bible, so it is just a collection of writings by men in primitive times, about whom history offers little or no insight.  What influence should such men have on whether or not to believe in God? 

- On his difficulty in continuing to work in the ministry, one man said, “I just look at it as a job, and do what I’m supposed to do.  I’ve done it for years.” 

Maybe therein lies the problem.  He just looks at his ministry as a job.  It’s not something that God called him to be a part of, so it’s no different than any other job–just a source of livelihood and money.  In fact, since he’s deceiving all of those under his leadership, his job really has less credibility than most.  Due to his deception and lying, his job is really more like the kinds of “jobs” that violate other standards of morality–like maybe a bookie, or a pimp. 

- One man said that his initial doubts about God came as he read the work of the so-called New Atheists–popular authors like the prominent scientist Richard Dawkins. He said the research was intended to help him defend his faith.

Ephesians 4:14 says, “Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.” 

 - “My thinking was that God is big enough to handle any questions that I can come up with, but that did not happen.” 

Well, that makes me wonder what the question was that was too big for God to handle. 

- “I realized that everything I’d been taught to believe was sort of sheltered, “and never really looked at secular teaching or other philosophies. … I thought, ‘Oh my gosh. Am I believing the wrong things? Have I spent my entire life and my career promoting something that is not true?’”

It sounds like man didn’t have enough training.  Perhaps he never took any seminary classes on world religions and philosophy. 

- This man said that he feared for his salvation and soul. “In that point where I realized I was losing my faith yet I still feared for my own salvation, I asked God to take my life before I lost my faith.” 

It must be quite painful and frightful for one who doesn’t really know what he believes. 

- He now considers himself to be an “atheistic agnostic.”  “I don’t think we can prove that there is not a God or that there is a God.  I live out my life as if there is no God.” 

He thinks that we must be able to prove scientifically that God exists.  This is contrary to what the Bible teaches–salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:8-9). 

- Both men said that when speaking to their congregations, they tried to stick to the sections of the Bible that they still believed in–the parts about being a good person. Both said that they would like to leave their jobs though they can’t afford to. 

So, they’re not really preaching the Bible.  They’re just picking and choosing which parts they want to teach on.  Yes, they do need to leave their jobs immediately, whether they can afford to or not; i.e., if they have any integrity, or any sense of morality.  Then they need to apologize to their congregations. 

- “I want to get out of the position that I’m in as quickly as I can because I try to be a person of integrity and character.  “With the economy the way it is, with my lack of marketable skills other than a seminary education, it has me in a tough spot.” 

Oh, really?  What kind of integrity and character does it take to deceive his entire congregation.  He should be less concerned about the poor economy, and more concerned about the lives of the people that he promised to shepherd. 

- One of the men said that his secret left him feeling isolated but that he would certainly lose a lot of friends when he professed to no longer being a Christian.  His wife doesn’t know and he said it was possible he could lose her as well.  “It’s going to be very confusing for her.  “It’s going to be very devastating and it’s going to take us a while to work through it.”  The other man said his wife knew that he was struggling with his faith but not that he had lost it completely. 

Well, I’m guessing that both wives found out when they read the news. 

- “It’s a very tough situation to be in.  I can’t think of another career that is so dramatically affected by a change in one’s opinions or thoughts.” 

Again, that could be the problem:  Thinking of a life in the ministry as just “another career.” 

We need to pray for these impostors, and for the congregations that they should be shepherding.

I’ve heard politicians defend the latest TSA security measures by proclaiming that we’ll do “whatever it takes” to make our air travel safe.  Really?  I believe that we have perverted the phrase “whatever it takes” from a rallying try to show our steadfastness in a particular cause, into a realized dispossession of everything by the government.  The government is taking over:  our money through taxation; our industry through bailouts; and, now our privacy, through body scans and pat-downs. 

This is not where the line has been crossed.  This line has been crossed for many years with rules such as not allowing us to take a small bottle of water on board, and forcing us to remove the shoes from the feet of our infant children.  Now we are offered the choice of how we want to have our privacy violated by a stranger:  through the viewing of our naked image via a full-body scan; or, a by a full-body pat-down.  Unfortunately, the government does seem to be serious about “whatever it takes.” 

Well, let’s take this approach to the extreme.  Keep taxing us until our tax rate is 100%.  Take this revenue and hire more government employees, and dream up more ways to keep us safe, whatever it takes.  Here’s one:  Have all airlines passengers step into the security and completely disrobe, and do so in front of everyone, so our fellow passengers can feel as safe as possible.  Once we’re naked, have us put our hands above our heads (like we’ve been arrested at gunpoint) so as not to conceal any bombs in our armpits.  Then have us walk from one end of the security area to the other.  Oh wait, have us twirl as we walk, to ensure that everyone gets a clear look at our naked bodies from every possible angle.  This would make us even safer, right?  Whatever it takes?