January 19, 2009 9:02 AM
Sam wrote:
New Bat-Channel this morning (some of you (like Rik) may not be old enough to remember the original Bat Man series on TV as it aired between January 1966 and March 1968---but Rik MAY have seen reruns, so I am assuming you all understand what I mean by new 'Bat Channel'. If not, here we go: The narrator of th show, William Dozier, would end many of the cliffhanger episodes by saying, "Tune in tomorrow — same bat-time, same bat-channel!".), as we shift from Hebrews to 1st Timothy and/or move to the next series' cliffhanger in 2nd Kings.
I like the term, cliffhanger...it gives a visual of danger, intrigue and suspense. Paul starts off 1st Timothy with an interesting chapter discussing his God-given merits as he hands down some advice to a young church leader, Timothy. He ends the chapter with a sort of cliffhanger comment" Among them are Hymeneous and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme. "Holy Bad Language, Batman!!!" POW! BAM! ZOKK! Our hero Batman, I mean, Paul, is 'socking it to' (an expression from Roland and Martin's Laugh-In--one HILARIOUS show!) those who 'shipwrecked their faith" (V19). He describes Hymeneous and Alexander as one of those who have rejected the concepts of "fighting a good fight and holding on to faith and a good conscience." Our '66 hero used to fight 'good fights' twice a week (for the first two seasons and once a week for the third) in living rooms across America. Paul, urges Timothy to also fight a good fight, not necessarily to knock out villians such as The Riddler, The Penguin, or Mr. Freeze, but to knock out unbelief---certainly a villian in its own right. Unbelief (Paul couples it with Ignorance in verse 13) can cause 'a fate worth than death', as described in verse 20 (handed over to Satan). This chapter written to Timothy can certainly be called a cliffhanger, as if you read it aloud to yourself, you just may wonder where Paul is going with this, and what will Timothy do with this instruction. I suggest that the lessons which Timothy and we can learn as Paul warns against false teachers and unbelief and violance, are many fold---we just need to absorb them and then go out to the world (as Paul is telling Timothy) to fight the good fight. So, this morning, arm yourself with God's Word, put on your costume of armor, and start your missions for God today with the urgency heard in Burce Wayne's command, "To the Batpoles!" Reply to this
January 19, 2009 9:56 AM
Johnbob wrote:
Trivia question - what was the statue that contained the button for the batpoles?
While you are thinking about that - with all our study about the role of the law, verse 8-9 says: "We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels..."
It seems to be saying that the law is meant for a guide to those who have no morals (the unrighteous). In context, the paragraph before this one is saying for Timothy to command certain people to cease with the false doctines, myths, genealogies, and meaningless talk. Then he says the law is not meant for the righteous, but for the unrighteous. I think he is saying that Christianity is not all about talk - you can talk endlessly about myths, genealogies, and other things that in the end are 'meaningless', i.e., it doesn't really help anyone - it doesn't really meet needs - in fact, Paul says that the goal of this command is 'LOVE' (v. 5) - in other words it is about action and meeting needs - yes, doctrine is important (Timothy is told to command certain men from spreading it), but in the end it is all about love (with actions and in truth).
The statue, if I recall, is a statue of Shakespeare. Reply to this
January 19, 2009 10:10 AM
Johnbob wrote:
I guess my question now that I think about this some more is where do you draw the line. It seems easy to me with Catholocism as well as being Episcopalean (which is how I grew up - similar to Catholicism) - the Episcopals have a gay bishop - now if there is something that is fairly clear cut in the Bible, it is homosexuality - both with direct commands and even looking at the big picture regarding God and creation. Catholics do a lot of great charity work around the world - they are awesome for that and I respect them for it - but where do you draw the line on their traditions, their view of priesthood, original sin, etc. Each denomination has these things and even 'we' have had things that were very wrong about our religion in the past. But I think the one thing that separates true christianity is whether a church will repent once it is shown the truth. We surely did repent of harshness, reliance on a system, etc. with the icoc. And we have some more to change, but I believe we are on the right track. Remember the terrible sins in the churn in Corinth and the churches in Revelations - God didn't say they weren't a churn because of it, but did say that they were in danger of their lampstand being removed if they didn't change. That is the issue I have with the Catholic church - that from the time of Luther on, they have been shown the truth and refused to change (they have changed some things - it was really bad in the Renaissance when popes were materialistic and worldly).
Enough rambling, I suppose.
So I am not sure how to piece all of this together in my mind - it is a work in progress. However, Reply to this
January 19, 2009 10:21 AM
Tony wrote:
How many times when we listen to people do we think," they don't know what they are talking about". This has been going on since the beginning of time. False teachers of the law, false preachers of the gospel, people who are just plain false in everything they do. How fake, transparent, false are we? Unholy and irreligious; adulterers and perverts, slave traders and liars. What a variety of people. Irreligion is an absence of religion, indifference to religion, or hostility to religion. How many people do we know like this? What are we doing to help them? If Paul was the worst of the worst, which is hard to believe since the old testament is full of people who did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than anyone before them, than I guess there is still hope for us. I don't think we are as bad as pall was, as far as killing people. But at the same time there are allot of "GOOD" people out here who think they are on the right path. Lets not be fooling ourselves, the "GOOD" ain't going nowhere good! We cant get there just by being good, so lets check ourselves before we, like Hymenaeus, Alexander and Job are tested by satan. Reply to this
New Bat-Channel this morning (some of you (like Rik) may not be old enough to remember the original Bat Man series on TV as it aired between January 1966 and March 1968---but Rik MAY have seen reruns, so I am assuming you all understand what I mean by new 'Bat Channel'. If not, here we go: The narrator of th show, William Dozier, would end many of the cliffhanger episodes by saying, "Tune in tomorrow — same bat-time, same bat-channel!".), as we shift from Hebrews to 1st Timothy and/or move to the next series' cliffhanger in 2nd Kings.
I like the term, cliffhanger...it gives a visual of danger, intrigue and suspense. Paul starts off 1st Timothy with an interesting chapter discussing his God-given merits as he hands down some advice to a young church leader, Timothy. He ends the chapter with a sort of cliffhanger comment" Among them are Hymeneous and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme. "Holy Bad Language, Batman!!!" POW! BAM! ZOKK! Our hero Batman, I mean, Paul, is 'socking it to' (an expression from Roland and Martin's Laugh-In--one HILARIOUS show!) those who 'shipwrecked their faith" (V19). He describes Hymeneous and Alexander as one of those who have rejected the concepts of "fighting a good fight and holding on to faith and a good conscience."
Our '66 hero used to fight 'good fights' twice a week (for the first two seasons and once a week for the third) in living rooms across America. Paul, urges Timothy to also fight a good fight, not necessarily to knock out villians such as The Riddler, The Penguin, or Mr. Freeze, but to knock out unbelief---certainly a villian in its own right.
Unbelief (Paul couples it with Ignorance in verse 13) can cause 'a fate worth than death', as described in verse 20 (handed over to Satan).
This chapter written to Timothy can certainly be called a cliffhanger, as if you read it aloud to yourself, you just may wonder where Paul is going with this, and what will Timothy do with this instruction.
I suggest that the lessons which Timothy and we can learn as Paul warns against false teachers and unbelief and violance, are many fold---we just need to absorb them and then go out to the world (as Paul is telling Timothy) to fight the good fight.
So, this morning, arm yourself with God's Word, put on your costume of armor, and start your missions for God today with the urgency heard in Burce Wayne's command, "To the Batpoles!"
Reply to this
Trivia question - what was the statue that contained the button for the batpoles?
While you are thinking about that - with all our study about the role of the law, verse 8-9 says:
"We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels..."
It seems to be saying that the law is meant for a guide to those who have no morals (the unrighteous). In context, the paragraph before this one is saying for Timothy to command certain people to cease with the false doctines, myths, genealogies, and meaningless talk. Then he says the law is not meant for the righteous, but for the unrighteous. I think he is saying that Christianity is not all about talk - you can talk endlessly about myths, genealogies, and other things that in the end are 'meaningless', i.e., it doesn't really help anyone - it doesn't really meet needs - in fact, Paul says that the goal of this command is 'LOVE' (v. 5) - in other words it is about action and meeting needs - yes, doctrine is important (Timothy is told to command certain men from spreading it), but in the end it is all about love (with actions and in truth).
The statue, if I recall, is a statue of Shakespeare.
Reply to this
I guess my question now that I think about this some more is where do you draw the line. It seems easy to me with Catholocism as well as being Episcopalean (which is how I grew up - similar to Catholicism) - the Episcopals have a gay bishop - now if there is something that is fairly clear cut in the Bible, it is homosexuality - both with direct commands and even looking at the big picture regarding God and creation. Catholics do a lot of great charity work around the world - they are awesome for that and I respect them for it - but where do you draw the line on their traditions, their view of priesthood, original sin, etc. Each denomination has these things and even 'we' have had things that were very wrong about our religion in the past. But I think the one thing that separates true christianity is whether a church will repent once it is shown the truth. We surely did repent of harshness, reliance on a system, etc. with the icoc. And we have some more to change, but I believe we are on the right track. Remember the terrible sins in the churn in Corinth and the churches in Revelations - God didn't say they weren't a churn because of it, but did say that they were in danger of their lampstand being removed if they didn't change. That is the issue I have with the Catholic church - that from the time of Luther on, they have been shown the truth and refused to change (they have changed some things - it was really bad in the Renaissance when popes were materialistic and worldly).
Enough rambling, I suppose.
So I am not sure how to piece all of this together in my mind - it is a work in progress. However,
Reply to this
Yes, almost...it was a BUST of Shakespeare.
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How many times when we listen to people do we think," they don't know what they are talking about". This has been going on since the beginning of time. False teachers of the law, false preachers of the gospel, people who are just plain false in everything they do. How fake, transparent, false are we? Unholy and irreligious; adulterers and perverts, slave traders and liars. What a variety of people. Irreligion is an absence of religion, indifference to religion, or hostility to religion. How many people do we know like this? What are we doing to help them? If Paul was the worst of the worst, which is hard to believe since the old testament is full of people who did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than anyone before them, than I guess there is still hope for us. I don't think we are as bad as pall was, as far as killing people. But at the same time there are allot of "GOOD" people out here who think they are on the right path. Lets not be fooling ourselves, the "GOOD" ain't going nowhere good! We cant get there just by being good, so lets check ourselves before we, like Hymenaeus, Alexander and Job are tested by satan.
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From Russia with love)
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