School Clerk In Georgia Persuaded Gunman To Lay Down Weapons
“I just started praying for him,” Antoinette Tuff tells Atlanta’s Channel 2 Action News. “I just started talking to him … and let him know what was going on with me and that it would be OK. And then [I] let him know that he could just give himself up. … I told him to put [the guns] on the table, empty his pockets. He had me actually get on the intercom and tell everybody he was sorry, too. But I told them, ‘He was sorry, but do not come out of their rooms.’ … I give it all to God, I’m not the hero. I was terrified.”
Jesus came and he turned the world upside down. He ate with sinners. He envisioned a world where peace was the norm. He envisioned a world where groups like Jews and Samaritans, groups that hated each other, could come together and love each other. He did more than just dream. He did something about it. He gave us these principles to live by and he gave us an example to follow. He chose the way of the cross and willingly sacrificed his life for others. We follow a crucified Messiah. The Jesus way is the way of the cross. This means we often have to make sacrifices that are challenging and difficult. If we are serious about following Jesus, then we will choose the Jesus way over our own comfort.
“Gordon, this is Doctor B. I have some difficult news for you. There’s a tumor in the back of your head in the lining of the brain. It is not malignant—you won’t die from this—but it will have to come out. And that means surgery and some recuperative time in the next few months.”
I have spent my whole life helping other people face doctor-call moments like these. Now it was my turn. And as the doctor went through further details of my situation, the very first thing that began to surge through my mind (the very first thing!) was: “Big G God is our refuge and strength comma, a very present help in trouble period. Big T therefore will not we fear period. Period. Period. Period.
Paul and the Unquestioned Authority of the “Old Testament”
I could provide numerous other specific examples of Paul’s apostolic example on using the unquestioned authority of the “Old Testament” to support his Gospel and the practice of his congregations. I have already made this musing longer than I intended so I will bring it to a close. But we must realize that every time we read Paul we are reading his own interaction with Scripture on a multitude of levels. His practice shows he believed the words he penned to Timothy regarding what we call the Old Testament but he simply called “Scriptures.” Our practice and his practice are as far removed from one another as east is from the west …
Counting the Cost (Accurately)
“There is a huge gray area around the question of ‘martyrs,’ ” said Veerman. “When Christians are isolated and denied clean drinking water and medical care because they are Christians and refuse to become Muslims—[and thus] they perish quicker than others—are they martyrs? In a strict sense, they aren’t. But when the whole mechanism behind [their deaths] is studied, we can say they are.”
Age, it seems, can either harden or renew dependent upon whether one is natural or spiritual. To me, a mark could be whether one is growing dim in kingdom vision (old) or increasingly wide-eyed (younger and enthused) about matters of the God-Life.
Some age in crusty stuckness; others in pliable openness.
The Serious Business of Giving Thanks
It may not be too much of a stretch to say that for Paul giving thanks is nearly revolutionary. It’s quite subversive in the first century. Rather than naming all the parts of one’s life as good gifts provided by the Roman gods, early Christians named the various aspects of their lives as good gifts from God who is the Father of Jesus Christ, the one who gave up everything that God’s people might have everything.
As a church meets for worship gatherings on Sunday, a wise pastor will not hand the microphone over to just anybody to teach. The pastor values the sermon—and the people—too much to haphazardly allow the teaching to “just sort of happen.” Yet every single week, in some of those same churches, groups gather and form community around studies that are disjointed from any type of discipleship plan, or worse, are disconnected from the doctrine and beliefs of the church.
Black men’s overrepresentation is no accident. Felony disenfranchisement laws trace back to the post-Reconstruction era when former Confederates and white Southern Democrats rolled back the political gains made by free slaves after the war. The whole point of these laws was the mass exclusion of black men from mainstream civic life. It still is.
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