Author: Tim Ehrhardt

I'm just a common ordinary pastor, chaplain, father, grandfather, and dog owner who loves the smell of a genuine leather Bible and the aroma of its message. I'm on a quest to track down the best Bibles, how to best read and use them, and to discover the encouragement inside.

1 Corinthians 7:32-40

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            We understand worry and anxiety.  Its part of the human condition in this broken world.  You may have even woken up this morning with deep furrows of anxiety about the state of your life – and maybe God was lost somewhere in your worry.  The Bible addresses worry many times, and the Apostle Paul brings it out here in our New Testament lesson for today.
            Throughout the letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul dealt with several issues effecting the life and spiritual (even physical) health of the church.  In chapter 7, he discusses the prospect of marriage for unmarried persons (sounds like Paul spoke at a lot of college campuses).  He goes back and forth as if he has a daisy in his hand giving a pre-marital counsel of “she loves me, she loves me not” as he pulls petals off the flower.
            Paul vacillates between whether to get married or not because he’s concerned for the larger issue of worry and anxiety.  “I want all of you to be free from worry.”  This, then, becomes a sage grid from which to make an important life decision: Does being unmarried create worry and anxiety within you, to the point that you can’t think about pleasing God?  Then drop the long engagement and get married; or, put yourself out there to connect in a relationship.  If not being married doesn’t cause you to worry, then stay in your current state and don’t pursue marriage.  Use your station in life to serve God freely, liberated from the worry of caring for a spouse.
            Pleasing and serving the Lord is Paul’s highest good.  If we are in life circumstances which make it difficult for us to serve God, then we ought to work to change the situation so that we can focus better on Christ.  This is one of the most simple and wise ways of making decisions for the Christian, and discerning God’s will.

 

God Almighty, you have brought me in safety to this new day.  Preserve me with your mighty power, that I may not fall into worry – forgetting to please you in every way.  Help me not be overcome by anxiety, and in all I do direct me to fulfilling of your purposes; through Jesus Christ, my Lord, along with you and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

The Sixth Sense of Spirituality

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality BlogLeave a comment

newborn baby

There are times you have no explanation for what is happening.  There are no real words to describe the experience you went through.  That’s because your five senses (taste, sight, touch, smell, and sound), although alert and reliable with taking-in all kinds of sensory data, are simply inadequate to explain the transcendent situation.

I was once talking with an agnostic person who became a father for the first time.  He was fresh off the incredible experience of being in the room with his wife when she gave birth to their son.  Bill (not his real name) was flush with enthusiasm.  He took in the sight of his newborn baby boy, held him and touched him for the first time, and joyfully listened to his very first screams of new life in this great big world.  Bill described it all to me with such awe.  Then he said something to me that I haven’t forgotten: “I don’t know how to explain it, Tim.  Something spiritual happened when my son was born, something I can’t put into words.  All I can say is that I experienced something that was not of this world.”

Something not of this world.  That was Bill’s way of saying that he had no mental categories from which to draw from to give any kind of sensory explanation to the awesome reality of being right there in childbirth.  Our five senses do not tell the whole story.  As important as our ability to taste, see, touch, smell, and hear is, there are other ways of knowing and experiencing life.

Faith and spirituality are the sixth sense which enable us to discern and know things about ourselves, this world, and God – that we would not know with only our five senses.  There is a spiritual reality that transcends the physical.  The soul, whether we acknowledge we have one or not, is the place of communion with this unseen reality.  The inner person is where we meet-up with God and find a vast world of spiritual resources which boggle the five senses.  Somehow, we know this is true, even though we cannot explain it.

Jesus said, “The Spirit is the one who gives life! Human strength can do nothing.”  In other words, God is Spirit and he gives meaning, connection, relationship, and even physical life.  Human abilities cannot ultimately do this.  Yes, we do have biological explanations for human attraction, marriage, and where babies come from.  But this is not the whole story.  There is a transcendent reality behind it all that gives life meaning and purpose.

God reaching for humanity

There are times, once-in-awhile, when the unique, the astonishing, and the beautiful grab us.  Our souls spring to life.  We “see” the transcendent, and get an awesome glimpse of this place where the physical and the spiritual “touch.” We “taste” that the Lord is good, and “hear” the call to a deeper experience of recognizing the care and compassion of Christ.  We take in a deep breath and “smell” the aroma of him who created us in his image and likeness.

Let your senses draw in all the wonderful information it can.  But don’t stop there.  Allow your soul to drink in the spiritual, and feed your inner person with Jesus Christ, who saves us from the sinful and the mundane, and lifts us to the world of the Spirit where there is life, hope, and infinite love.

Psalm 35:1-10

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            Sometimes you just have to tell it like it is.  There is a time to do your best in putting up a good face and dealing with people who don’t ever stop gossiping, slandering, and trying to get their way.  But there is also a time to call such behavior “evil” and cry out to God for help.
            Psalm 35 is a classic prayer in the category called “imprecatory psalms.”  The term “imprecatory” means to call down a curse on a person or group of people.  Maybe this surprises you that there is such language in the Bible.  In fact, there are 18 such imprecatory psalms which make a clear petition to God for him to turn the evil back on themselves that they inflict (or try to inflict) on others.
            I’m a believer in making simple observations about the biblical text.  Let’s observe a few things about such psalms:
1.      David asks God to deal with the evil behavior of powerful people.
Unlike most of us, David went through a time in is life where there were powerful people who were literally trying to hunt him down and take his life.  As much as we might speculate whether David wanted to take matters into his own hands, the fact remains that he didn’t.  David relied on God to execute judgment.
2.     David did not hold his feelings back in describing exactly what he wanted God to do.
There is nothing sanitized here in the psalm.  David was understandably upset.  He did nothing wrong, yet he was being chased like an animal.  David said it plainly to God: “attack my attackers;” “aim your spear at everyone who hunts me down;” “send your angel after them;” “surprise them with disaster;” and, “let them fall and rot in the pits they have dug.”  Whatever you might think about how a proper Christian ought to say and pray, imprecatory curses might not be your first thought.  But here they are, out there for us to read in the Holy Bible.
3.     The psalms are the prayer book of the church.
That includes the imprecatory psalms.  Yes, they ought to be prayed by us right along with psalms of praise, thanksgiving, and song.  I want you to think what might be a radical thought for you: We ought to include imprecatory prayers in our regular rhythms, routines, and rituals of prayer.
 
            Evil will not have the last word.  God opposes the proud and the arrogant who step on others to get their way.  But he gives grace to the humble, that is, those who look to him for justice and righteousness; are open about their feelings of hurt and upsetedness; and, lift-up imprecatory prayers which are biblically consistent.

 

Saving God, you protect the helpless from those in power and save the poor and needy who cry out to you.  Mighty God, turn back on those with slanderous tongues, gossiping words, and sinful actions the evil they intend to inflict on others.  Let them fall into a deep black hole for which they cannot get out and harm anyone again; through King Jesus, our Savior, in the assistance of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

1 Corinthians 8

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            Consider an issue you care about.  Likely, one of the big reasons you care is that you either see some abuse, neglect, inattention, or lack of love applied toward someone or a group of people.  So, you want to see it be different.  Now, here comes the interesting part: We are motivated by love, but we often end up addressing the problem or issue in the realm of thought and/or belief.  We rely on the political, theoretical, and intellectual to solve the problem.  In other words, our hearts are attuned but we turn to knowledge and rules to achieve a change.
            The Apostle Paul knew that we are primarily lovers – not thinkers or believers.  Thinkers and believers traffic in knowledge and faith in belief systems.  These are of great significance, yet they are not the primary or ultimate ends for Paul.  Instead, Paul took on a divisive issue in the Corinthian church (whether one can eat food which was originally sacrificed to idols, or not) by saying this:
“Knowledge makes us proud of ourselves, while love makes us helpful to others.”
 
Paul begins with love and ends with love.  This issue of certain kinds of food was neither an intellectual nor a faith issue – it was a love issue.  Paul’s answer to the problem dividing them on food was that food is a secondary issue.  To look at it through the lenses of love makes it clear what you ought to or ought not to do.  This doesn’t make thinking and believing irrelevant, it just places it in its proper place and supports love.
            Whenever our opinions and thoughts, and our faith and belief structures are handled without love, then special interest groups begin to form.  Then, division occurs based upon what we think and believe about certain things.  But when love is supreme, knowledge is no longer the tail wagging the dog.
            Love is meant to enlighten us not only to the problems among us; love is also the answer to those issues we care about most.  Let that statement be added to your knowledge so that you encourage and build-up others, and not discourage and tear them down.  It really is all about love.

 

Loving God, you demonstrated your own love for us through sending us your Son, the Lord Jesus, who is the perfect embodiment of love.  May He be so manifested within me that love becomes not only the motivator to change, but also the answer to change; through the power and help of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.