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.

Zephaniah 3:14-20

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            I grew up in the church.  Yet I must admit that I neither gained a true nor biblical view of God.  As a kid my concept of God was that he was an old white bearded guy who pretty much just twiddled his thumbs on a big ivory throne and occasionally looked down on the earth to see what was happening.  If he got involved at all, it was to take out some sort of divine BB gun and shoot random people in the backside just for kicks (yes, I know this says a whole lot about what kind of kid I was!).
 
            You may not have such a view of God, but just maybe God is a bit different than you have always conceived him to be.  The Old Testament prophets are conduits to showing us something of the pathos of God, that is, the emotions and heart of God.  Yes, I said emotions.  It could be that we do not think of God as feeling anything (except maybe anger) and portray him in our minds as some sort of big brain on a stick that never really gets excited about anything except disobedience.
 
            But in this wonderful little book of Zephaniah we get a portrayal of a God who is graciously giddy.  All the prophetic books of the Bible display a God who moves in waves of judgment and grace in response to a people who continually break covenant stipulations.  Yet God does not remain angry forever.  He is merciful and is in the business of not only forgiving people but restoring them and making them righteous. 
 
            There is a verse tucked away in Zephaniah that we might pass over because we do not tend to look at God this way:  “The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.”  It is God himself that rejoices and sings.  Yes, God.  Perhaps we need to gain the perspective that God throws parties and celebrates.  Maybe we must begin to think the thought that God is not some divine curmudgeon that is constantly a sourpuss. 
 
            If God is this way (and he himself says he is) then maybe we ought to entertain the notion that hospitality, food, celebration, and loud rejoicing reflects God’s image as much or more than somber attitudes.  Maybe Christians are the people who should throw the best parties in the neighborhood.  Soon Christmas will be here, and the Church Calendar allows for and encourages a twelve day celebration of the incarnation, of God becoming human.  It is time to prepare for a party.  Let us do it with all the gusto that befits people created in God’s likeness.
            Joyous God, how thankful I am that you do not remain angry forever.  May your grace and mercy seep down into my soul to the point of bringing out loud singing and rejoicing.  May a watching world see that there is joy both in heaven and on earth.  Amen.

Psalm 96

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            It was the Dutch theologian and statesman, Abraham Kuyper, who famously said over one hundred years ago, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”  That sentiment perfectly expresses the vision of the psalmist concerning God’s rightful place over all creation.  “Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name” is both the believer’s duty and delight.
 
            All of God’s good promises are ultimately fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus Christ.  The New Testament focuses the praise to King Jesus, the great Sovereign over all.  It is in Christ that all creation finds both redemption and restoration. 
 
            As we move near to Christmas and the birth of the Christ child, the biblical witness testifies along with the psalmist that not just Israel will have a king – all kinds of people will come to believe and submit with joyful abandon to the Lord of the universe.  Since God reigns over every square inch of creation and our lives, he will continue to bring more and more people under the gracious and benevolent rule of Jesus.  This is to God’s glory, and our praise.
            Mighty God, your gracious rule extends to all the world.  May your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven so that all creation shall rightly praise your holy name, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

2 Samuel 6:1-11

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            God really cares about the manner in which we worship him.  In today’s Old Testament lesson, David and the Israelites are celebrating before the LORD and having a whopper of a worship service.  The reason for the big jubilation was the moving of the ark of God to Jerusalem.  However, there was one problem:  God was angry about it to the point of striking down Uzzah the Levite and killing him.
 
            The issue that prompted such a reaction was that the LORD had given specific instructions in the Law about how to carry the ark – with poles specially designed for the task.  But David and the Levites were transporting the ark not with poles, but on a cart.  And God was not okay with it.  The thing that is important for every believer and church to grasp is that when our pragmatism and human ingenuity trump the plain instructions of Holy Scripture, God’s anger is quite likely to be kindled.  The fact of the matter is that David and the Levites should have known better – it was their job to know how to go about moving the ark.  Their negligence cost a person his life.
 
            We, too, have a responsibility to know how to worship the Lord our God.  Worshiping God in whatever way seems best to us might make a lot of sense in our heads, but it just may offend the Lord.  It would be a very good thing to re-examine the Bible on the subject of worship.  In the current evangelical church climate of worshiping in whatever manner gets results, giving this biblical story a fresh examination in light of our own context is a place to start.
            Holy God, who cares about how people approach you, lead your people into the proper way of worship to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit so that you might be pleased and glorified and your church blessed.  Amen.

Mary

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
Most of life is lived in the mundane.  For the most part our everyday lives are the same, going about our business and dealing with the daily grind.  Occasionally the monotony is broken up with holidays, seeing old friends, vacations, or the rare surprise.  We are common ordinary people.  So, we can especially relate to Mary, at the conception of Jesus, because she is quite plain.  Mary is in junior high. She wears consignment store clothing. She can’t read because girls of her day rarely did. Her parents make all the decisions that affect her life, including the one that she should be married to an older man named Joseph. We don’t know if she even liked him. She lives in a small town that most people can’t point to on a map. 
 
            One night, into the bedroom of this young girl comes the brightly beaming divine messenger Gabriel whose name means, “God has shown himself mighty” (Luke 1:26-38). Mary stands there in her flannel nightgown, her life very quickly moving from the ordinary to extraordinary.  The juxtaposition could not be more pronounced:  mighty angel and a plain teen-ager; messenger of the Most High God and a girl barely past puberty; holy angelic light in a simple candlelit bedroom; awesome power and complete vulnerability.
 
Mary, compared to Gabriel, is defenseless, fragile, and overwhelmed.  She is in over her head.  That is why we can relate to her. We can get our human arms around Mary. She’s like us. She has faced life with little power to make it turn out the way she planned. Forces beyond her have rearranged her life and altered it forever. She is the Matron Saint of the Ordinary. We can totally understand why Mary responds the way she does.
 
Mary’s initial reaction was to be greatly troubled.  She was disturbed and shaking in her ratty old slippers.  The angel confidently told Mary that she had found favor with God.  In other words Mary was quite literally “graced” by God.  The situation was not that Mary had some extreme spirituality but that God simply chose her to be the mother of Jesus.  And Mary needed to come to grips with what was happening to her.  This was not what she was looking for.  Becoming pregnant with the Savior of the world was not an answer to prayer for Mary.  This was not on her agenda. 
 
Mary immediately sensed the crazy disconnect between what was being told to her and who she was.  After all, she was a plain ordinary girl from the hick town of Nazareth and she was being told that she would raise a king.  Maybe somebody in heaven screwed up.  Maybe Gabriel got the wrong girl.  Maybe his Google map popped up the wrong town to visit.  Relating to Mary, we can totally understand that she would question how in the world all this was going to happen.  Not only is Mary ordinary and far from royalty, but she is also very much a virgin.  None of this made any sense.
 
But the angel lets Mary know that God specializes in the impossible.  We do not always get straightforward answers to our questions about God, but Mary asked a question and got a straight answer:  she really can be pregnant with Jesus because the Holy Spirit will come upon her, will overshadow her with power.  If the story were to end here it would be a great story.  But to me the most astonishing part of this narrative is Mary’s response to what was happening to her.
 
Mary believed the message, and having believed submitted herself completely to God’s will for her life.  I think we would totally understand if Mary simply said in her ordinary way that she was not prepared for this.  We would completely get it if Mary pushed back on what the angel said to her.  We could relate if Mary just dismissed it all, like Scrooge in the Christmas Carol, with the angel and his message being all humbug as if it were just “an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato.  There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”
 
But Mary not only believes, she humbly submits herself to what is happening.  And this is what we need to relate to most about Mary – not her being just a plain ordinary person in a non-descript village, but stepping up to the calling she received.  We, too, have received a calling in our lives.  We, too, have been given the power of the Holy Spirit.  We, too, are ordinary people who have been given a very extraordinary task. 
 
Mary responded to God’s revelation with faith, choosing to fully participate in what God was doing.  “I am the Lord’s servant” is to be our confession, as well.  “May it be to me as you have said” is to be our cry, along with Mary.  The message we proclaim is that Jesus saves – he delivers from sin and Satan and will restore all things.
 

 

            None of us needs to be extraordinary in order to be used of God.  We just need a simple faith that God will do exactly what he said he will do.  The church has a beautiful message of grace not only for this season, but all through the year.  Let us embrace it, embody it, and share it.