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.

A Christian View of the Body

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
“Don’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20, The Message).
 
           

 

 
            You probably already know you should lose weight, or stop smoking, or get in shape, or have better sleep hygiene, and generally take much better care of your body.  I am not here to add to the burden.  Rather, I am here to bring out a very important point:  Our bodies are the vehicle given to us to glorify God.  In other words, our spirituality is really quite embodied.
 
            One of the reasons we fail our bodies is that we do not always make the biblical connection of seeing our physical selves as important as other things – as if care of the body is somehow optional to the Christian life.  The major reason Paul brought up a discussion about the body was because Corinth was a Greek city thoroughly imbibed with a Platonic philosophy of life.  At the core of Plato’s view of humanity was that the immaterial and the spiritual were of higher value than the body.  For Plato, the body is a necessary evil.  He referred to our souls being imprisoned within the flesh.  When we die the soul is released and is freed from its bodily jail.
 
            Western civilization has been significantly influenced, even today, by Plato’s view of humanity.  But that is not the biblical view of the body.  Instead of being a prison, the body is a temple, a sacred place which is no better or no worse than the soul.  When we die, Paul made it clear to the Corinthians at the end of his letter to them that we will not be disembodied souls, but will experience a bodily resurrection at the end of the age.  Eternity will be spent existing in a renewed body free from sin, but nonetheless a real body.
 
            If it is true that the body is sacred, and that we cannot glorify God apart from our bodies, then it is of great spiritual importance that we steward our bodies just like we would steward any other physical material possession we own.  We have bought into Platonic philosophy, for example, when we treat our cars better than we treat our bodies.  If a warning light comes on in our cars, we get it checked out by the mechanic.  He fixes the problem and tells us what we need to do to prevent it from happening again, and we listen to him.  But when warning lights go off in our bodies, we ignore them until our bodies literally break down and we have to go to the doctor.  And even then, the doctor tells us to do something, and we don’t do it.  We do not even think of ignoring the advice of our mechanic, and yet we do it with our doctor.  Why in the world would we do that?  We function in such a wrongheaded way because we need to listen carefully to the biblical wisdom that we glorify God on this earth through using our bodies. 
 
            If we do not have time or priority for sleep, exercise, and eating well, then we do not have time for God because God has given us our bodies and he expects us to care for them and use them well.  I look at my body the same way I look at borrowing something from another person:  I return it in the best condition I can.  When God takes me home someday, I don’t want it to be because I did not take care of my body and hastened my own death.
 
            People often give up on their best laid plans for physical health because it is disconnected from the rest of their lives.  What I am insisting is that care of the body is as important as anything we do in the spiritual realm because our bodies belong to God.  The church, rather than ignoring proper care of the body, really ought to be at the forefront of promoting physical fitness and health by stopping the insanity of bifurcating body and soul. 
 

 

            I am not my own, but belong – body and soul, in life and in death – to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.  We are holistic beings, created by God to glorify him in the church and the world.  Let’s uphold this by taking care to be responsible with how we treat and use our bodies.  After all, it is a spiritual issue.

Hebrews 12:3-17

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
            “So keep your mind on Jesus, who put up with many insults from sinners.  Then you won’t get discouraged and give up.”  The Hebrew Christians were in danger of losing their resolve and reneging on their commitment to Christ.  Their circumstances had been so adverse for so long that they just did not have any more fight in them to keep going.  They needed perseverance.
 
            The path to perseverance is through keeping our minds on Jesus.  Sometimes we might forget that Jesus did not have it easy on this earth.  He faced ridicule, insults, hardship, and was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth.  If that was the path for our Lord, then it is silly to think that, as Christ’s followers, we should avoid suffering and hardship. 
 
            Giving up happens when our minds are off Jesus.  Today we would say, “Get your head in the game!”  Regular Bible reading and persistence in prayer to God are not just nice ideas if we have time for them.  If we are going to maintain a commitment to Christianity, then these become must disciplines in our lives over all other disciplines we do on a daily basis.  Feelings of giving-up ought to clue us to the reality that it is time to retreat with God. 
 

 

            Jesus, you are the Suffering Servant who has gone before us and secured deliverance from sin, death, and hell.  In the scope of eternity, it is a small thing for me to live for you and face any kind of ridicule it might bring to me.  I only ask to be in solidarity with you in all things.  Amen.

Facing Transitions

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
            Life has its seasons.  The journey from childhood to teenager, from adult to spouse, from parent to empty-nester, from caregiver to being cared-for, are all just a sampling of the different seasons of life that people travel through.  Each period of life has its own joys and sorrows, rewards and regrets.  But the really difficult trick is moving from one season to the next.  Transitions imply change – every time.  These transitions are things everyone experiences, and some are more difficult for us than others.  But if there ever were sure events of life, transitions are it.  So, we must learn to navigate them with some attention and care.
 
            At the time of this writing, I am in the process of moving my youngest daughter to a new job and new adventure in a new city for her.  It is all good stuff.  But it is a transition.  And it is not particularly easy.  But I am committed to not simply move on with life as if there were no challenge to it.  Her leaving marks a new era in the lives of me and my wife (who will certainly find this transition more than challenging!). 
 
            Churches also face the challenge of transitions because they inevitably go through cycles of change.  To try and never change is to forsake the sheer reality that congregations have their own life experience of birth, growth, change, maturity, decline, and eventually death.  None of the churches mentioned in the New Testament of the Bible still exist.  It does not necessarily mean they did anything wrong or unwise; they just underwent a particular life journey, experienced a full range of Christian life and service to their people and communities – then they passed away.  But just as we, in some ways, live forever through the ongoing generations of our progeny, so churches never really die in the sense that they live on in the many people who came to Christ, grew in spiritual maturity, and multiply by proclaiming the good news of Jesus to others.
 
            Since life transitions are highly significant, here are some ways to approach them when they occur:
 
—It is a new opportunity to be in a different role.  When a child leaves for college, the parental role is changed to become an adult peer and even a friend.  Yes, in one sense parenting never ends; but in another sense it just shifts to being a faithful mentor and example like never before.  When a church member or family leaves a congregation, the relationship is changed.  People leave for all kinds of reasons, but the relationship should be kept open to respond to them as the universal Body of Christ.
 
–It is okay to bawl and be sad.  Grief attaches itself to any significant change or loss, and not only to bereavement.  It is both normal and necessary to experience the passing of a season of life that you will never have again.  It is also appropriate to celebrate and remember a job well done in raising a well-adjusted person who is becoming an important contribution to society.  Go ahead, pat yourself on the back.  It’s okay.  It is also okay to remember and celebrate church ministries that have had their day, but are no longer viable.  Give them a decent remembrance so that you can move on to the new thing God is doing.
 
–It is important to connect with others who have been through it.  Everyone goes through transitions.  But not everyone has done it well.  Seek out and find those persons for whom you see a successful and fruitful transition from one season of life to another.  As it pertains to churches, they almost always need help from those outside the congregation to transition well into a new phase of ministry.  Let it happen by purposely seeking out wise people who have been through it.
 
–It is finally now your chance to pursue God’s unique calling.  That ministry, job, or education which has been set on the back burner for so long now has the chance to come to the fore in your life.  Embrace the new beginning that God has been stirring in you for a while to come out and have its day.
 

 

            I am not communicating as any sort of expert on the subject of transitions.  I just have had to experience a good many of them in my life, and have learned a few things along the way.  But I am still discovering along with everyone else.  And each transition is new and different than all the others before it.  I am not sure yet what God has for me with my daughter’s transition.  But I do know that I am entering a new season which is full of fresh possibilities.  May you discover yours, as well.

Acts 7:44-53

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
            We are in the dog days of summer, just before school starting everywhere.  It is a good time to remind ourselves of where we are in the Christian Year, because this season also has its dog days in which we lose sight of what is important.  We have come through Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, and Easter, as well as Pentecost.  With the giving of the Spirit, we have entered Ordinary Time.  A healthy way of remembering this period in time is that, in this longest season of the Church Calendar, it is the ordinary vocation of every single Christian to grow in Christ and share the good news of Jesus with the world.
 
            But we forget.  We take our eyes off our calling.  Like the ancient Israelites for whom Stephen railed against in our New Testament lesson for today, we get stubborn and hard-headed.  We get lost in doing things our own way to the neglect of actually seeing what God wants.  And we end up doing damage to God’s people, God’s name, and God’s law.  We verbally decapitate God’s prophets who are calling us to holiness, and resist the Lord’s servants who are only trying to serve him.
 
            But we will only find ourselves fighting against God.  Every time we think we have piously figured things out, we will only discover that God is so much bigger than our puny thoughts and misguided practices.  What to do?  Let go of your illusion of power and privilege and submit afresh to the Lord for whom we must bow in all things.  If you can do that, then you are well on your way to seeing the only true God.
 

 

            Holy God, heaven is your throne and the earth your footstool.  You cannot be kept within any one church or any single place.  You are much too big for that!  Forgive me for my small thoughts of you.  I humble myself to you so that you can live in and through me for the sake of Jesus.  Amen.