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.

Isaiah 49:5-15

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            Restoration is a major theme in the prophetic books of the Old Testament.  In this passage of Isaiah, God speaks of bringing Israel back to her original calling and purpose.  This would be accomplished through not just one nation but in the Messiah.  The scope and vision of what the Savior would do is enunciated by God:  “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
 
            In other words, Messiah is not just for Israel – Christ is given to reach the entire planet.  Jesus did not come to earth only to gather the Jewish nation back together like some sort of Bill Gaither Homecoming tour.  Instead, Messiah’s place and power is so significant that it is to be shared with everyone in the world.  Although Israel was to be a holy entity and separate from the surrounding culture, they were always to be a light to the nations.
 
            This has great import for the church and every individual believer in Jesus.  The church is not just to be like a country club that caters to club functions and members.  Instead, a missional understanding of church is to be at the forefront of Christian theology and practice because it has always been God’s vision to reach the nations.  The Lord is not satisfied with only catering to a specific people; God wants everyone.  And until believers grasp this heart of God for all persons the church will not be what it is designed to be:  a missionary enterprise that is to put all its resources into shining the light of Christ to every nook and cranny of creation.
 
            It behooves each of us, then, to be taught, trained, and led into God’s missionary heart for all.  Let us build caring relationships and extend loving actions not just to those within the church but toward those outside our fellowship so that God’s intentions are carried out and his prophecy fulfilled in Jesus’ name.
            Restoring God, you bring us back to close relation and fellowship so that we might extend your gracious purposes throughout the world.  Revive us again, God, so that we can hear your call to the nations through our Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Praise the Lord!

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
The time between December 25 and January 5 are the 12 days of Christmas, and they are to be a great celebration because King Jesus has come and he is the rightful Sovereign over all creation.  We are to intentionally enter into the meaning of Christ’s incarnation.  We affirm the identity of Jesus as both full human and fully divine.  Beginning with Christ’s birth, we reflect on the meaning of Christ’s life and prepare for the Lenten journey toward the cross and the empty tomb.
 
            Christmas means that we praise the Lord.  Not just us, but we praise God with all creation.  Everything outside our earth is to give God glory.  Everything in the universe points to a God who is worthy to be praised.  New York Pastor Tim Keller once said that when he was a child a Sunday school teacher changed his life with a simple illustration.  The teacher said, “Let’s assume the distance between the earth and the sun (92 million miles) was reduced to the thickness of this sheet of paper. If that is the case, then the distance between the earth and the nearest star would be a stack of papers 70 feet high. And the diameter of the galaxy would be a stack of papers 310 miles high.”  Then Keller’s teacher added, “The galaxy is just a speck of dust in the universe, yet Jesus holds the universe together by the word of his power.”  Finally, the teacher asked her students, “Now, is this the kind of person you ask into your life to be your assistant?”
 
            We serve a big God who is worthy to be praised, not only out there in the universe but here on earth.  The entire earth is to echo the adoration of God.  That means everything and everyone on earth – fish, animals, birds, and people.  Research in the field of bioacoustics has revealed that every day we are surrounded by millions of ultrasonic songs. For example, the electron shell of the carbon atom produces the same harmonic scale as the Gregorian chant.  Whale songs can travel thousands of miles underwater.  Meadowlarks have a range of three hundred notes. Supersensitive sound instruments have discovered that even earthworms make faint staccato sounds! Arnold Summerfield, a German physicist and pianist, observed that a single hydrogen atom (which emits one hundred frequencies) is more musical than a grand piano, which only emits eighty-eight frequencies.  Science writer Lewis Thomas summed it up it this way: “If we had better hearing, and could discern the [singing] of sea birds, the rhythmic [drumming] of schools of mollusks, or even the distant harmonics of [flies] hanging over meadows in the sun, the combined sound might lift us off our feet.”
 
            Praise the Lord!  All creation is called to praise God as one great huge choir.  Praise is to occur with both words and actions.  With words, praise is an expression of gratitude to God for who he is and what he has done.  With actions, praise is a posture of submission and an acknowledgement of dependence.
 
            Therefore, testimony is important to the gathered church because through testimony we declare what God has done in our lives and how he is worthy to be praised and obeyed. Yet, praise is not just for the joyful; it is to happen no matter the circumstances because our happiness is not dependent upon positive situations but rather upon the person and work of Jesus.  It may not be easy to find our voice of praise along with everyone else, but we are not alone.  We can choose to join with all creation to praise the name of the Lord. 
 
My wife, who recently had two spine surgeries, said this:  “I am thankful for a chance to get out of the house. Of course my walker was with me.  I am amazed how quickly folks move over, slow down, and give me space when I am out with that thing….  At church it feels like I’m parting the Red Sea! The reason I hate the walker is because it says to the whole world, ‘Hey, I’m broken!’  I realize we all have areas that we are broken, most of them we can hide or cover up. Why are we so ashamed to confess the truth? Who really has it all together? I know we love our privacy and shun pity. However, I have been shown so much grace, kindness, and compassion as I push this piece of aluminum around that I hope this experience continues to change me for the better. I hope in the future I will be sensitive to those who are broken on the inside as well as the outside. May the love of Christ give me eyes to see people as he does, precious and accepted, just as they are.”
 
That word of testimony is the reasonable and logical end for the church of praising the Lord – to connect what God has done and is doing with what he can do through us as we glorify his name.  By simply being who we are created to be, we praise the Lord along with all creation.  When we as people created in God’s image, reflect that image in how we talk and how we live, we participate with the universe in declaring that God is good.  Praise is to be the comprehensive glue that binds every person, family, and ministry of the church together.
 

 

Whether you feel like it, or struggle to say it and live it, we are all to praise the Lord along with everything in the universe because we serve a God who keeps us close to his heart.  Praise the Lord!

1 John 1:1-9

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            It is day three in the twelve days of Christmas.  In the Church Calendar, Christmas in not only one day in which we celebrate the birth of Christ, but a season between December 25 and January 5 in which Christians express their joy over the incarnation of Jesus.  It is an intentional time of affirming the wonderful truth that Jesus is fully man and fully God; that Jesus has gone before us and brought salvation; that in Jesus our sins are forgiven.  And that, my friends, is reason to spend twelve days in celebration.  God has graciously come to earth for our deliverance from sin, death, and hell.
             The Apostle John began his first epistle telling us the reason he writes about Jesus is to make our joy complete.  With Jesus the light, the good news, has come.  If we enter the light and walk in the light, eschewing the darkness, we participate and have fellowship with God through Jesus.  Through Jesus, if we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all that is unrighteous and of the darkness.
             As a pastor who leads worship in a more liturgically oriented church, the gospel of Jesus is presented each and every Sunday through the liturgy.  My favorite part in the service, and my most joyous experience, is when, having confessed our sins together I declare the assurance of pardon from our God using Scripture.  Often I quote from this passage in 1 John.
             This is a time of year in which Christians can choose to praise the Lord for salvation from sin.  It is a season to reflect on the gracious reality that God has chosen to come near to us in Jesus.  These are days in which our reflection upon the person and work of Christ is to lead us to eternal praise as we glorify our Lord and Savior, Jesus.  Glory to God in the highest; peace on earth; and, goodwill to humanity on whom his favor rests!
             Gracious God, I praise your holy name for sending your Son, the Lord Jesus, to this earth in order to redeem humanity.  Help me so completely to confess my sins and accept your forgiveness that I glorify your name. May your good news of salvation permeate my life in both words and actions in the power of the Spirit.  Amen.

Luke 2:1-14

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            It is Christmas Eve.  Over the centuries since Christ’s birth we in the Western world have tended to so romanticize the Nativity that we have lost the scandal of grace.  So, in order to attempt a humble return to the original impact of Jesus coming to earth, I offer a contemporary version of Luke’s account of the shepherds and angels….
 
            In those days a law went out from the President that everyone in the country should be registered for the draft.  And all went to be registered, each to his own town.  And Joseph also went up from his hick small town to another small village called Bethlehem, because that is where his family was originally from.  He took his betrothed wife, Mary, with him and she was with child.  And while they were there, the time came for Mary to give birth.  And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in an old ratty blanket and laid him in a dresser drawer in the trailer they were staying in, because they could not afford the Motel 6.
 
            And in the same area there were truckers out at the local truck stop, sipping coffee with their semis all around them.  And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were afraid.  And the angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid because I am bringing you some really joyful news that is for everyone.  For your sake a Savior has been born tonight over in the trailer park, who is Christ the Lord.  And this will be a sign for you:  you will find a baby wrapped in an old ratty blanket and lying in a dresser drawer.  And suddenly there was with the angel a whole lot of other angels who together started praising God and saying:  “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
 
            The good news of Jesus coming to this earth is that he came not only for the educated, the wealthy, and the influential; he came for all kinds of people, especially those on the margins of society because the gospel is for everyone.
 
            This night not everyone will be within a church building celebrating with a candlelight service.  Some will be working and just trying to make a living.  Some will finally be with family after being on the road most of the year.  Some will just be happy to have a break.  They need Jesus just as much or more than we do.  Maybe by the grace of God an angel will show up and tell them where to find Jesus.  But if that doesn’t happen, let us be the ones who tell them the good news that Christ the Lord is born just for them.
            Gracious God, you have mercifully sent us your beloved Son to save us all so that we might live new and holy lives.  Help us so to be sensitive to your coming that the news comes joyfully out of us.  Amen.