Medicine Hat Joe

Week 48 Timothy

I like the two Timothy letters because they talk quite a bit about life in the church – its organizational set-up & management guidelines & instructions for leadership & teaching content & church demographics…like that.
Anyway one of the things I noticed was that Paul gave Timothy details about a specific cohort called deacons. He said deacons:
Must be men of dignity…
Not given to double-talk…
Not addicted to wine…
Not fond of sordid gain.
It seems pretty clear that Paul was talking about men in verses eight-nine-ten – men who were deacons – and he talked about them again in twelve-thirteen. But for some reason he started talking about women in verse eleven. That seemed weird and out-of-place until I noticed a marginal reference that said the women Paul was talking about in eleven were either deacons’ wives or deaconesses (which I guess could mean female deacons who were married to male deacons or unmarried female deacons or married female deacons who weren’t married to deacons). That made sense. Paul said that these women:
Must likewise be dignified…
Not malicious gossips…
Temperate…
Faithful in all things.
The two lists – one for men & one for women – line up pretty well. In fact they line up pretty-well enough that I wonder why Paul didn’t just make an inclusive list. But I don’t have much time to wonder. My first question about why-women-in-verse-eleven has a possible answer. So that’s good enough for now.

Note: quotes from 1 Timothy 3:8 & 11 (NASB). NLT margin also says women deacons.

Week 48 1 Thessalonians

Halfway through chapter five there’s a subtitle that says Paul’s Final Advice. I count 15 items.
It’s a kind of bible-reader’s To-Do & To-Be List.
I re-read it to see if anything jumps out at me. They all do but a couple jump higher than others:
be patient with everyone…
try to do good to each other…
be joyful…
be thankful.
Even my short list is pretty demanding. I know these are things I (only) aspire to – in other words they’re not comprehensively-&-totally achievable – but that doesn’t mean they’re disregardable.
I sit thinking about how to address the list.
Be patient with everyone… I visualize a person I know who’s difficult to be patient with. Since Paul doesn’t say that some people can be exempted from his be-patient-with-everyone list I figure my task is to take a first step (on what I fully expect will be a long-long-long road) of trying-trying-trying to be more patient with that person. I figure I’ll not likely ever be as fully patient with him as I am with some other person I’m patient with. On the other hand I’m figuring that – in the process of experimenting with a variety of Patience-Building Exercises and also praying for Enhanced Divine Assistance  over a period of years & decades – that I’ll eventually develop more patience (even if I am only moving along at the pace of evolution).

Note: quoted from 1 Thessalonians 5:14, 15, 16, 18 (NLT). Added reading update: as of December 1 I’ve read 1654 of 1730 pages.

Week 48 Colossians

Paul says: work hard and cheerfully at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.
Work-hard-&-cheerfully-at-whatever-you-do is a pretty good general principle and it likely applies right across the board.
The weird thing though is that Paul addressed the advisory to slaves.
(I know that Paul gets slammed for not shouting “Slavery Is Terrible” but my personal guess is that Paul was no advocate of the institution. That said he took an eyes-wide-open look around and saw slavery was the actual labour system and a key economic driver of the Roman economy. I guess he could have told slaves to test the chains. But his advice was a bit more modest.)
I draw a circle on a sheet of paper and call it the 9-5 Daily Work Circle. I draw a bigger circle outside – the diagram looks like a doughnut now – and call it the 12-12 Daily Activity Circle. Inside the inner circle is my work. And everything inside the outer circle is my whole life.
Inside the outer circle I live my life before the Lord. And since the inner circle of my work is inside the outer circle the outer affects the inner. So I work for my 9-5 work master – he sets my schedule & tasks & hours & performance-expectations. He gets my 9-5. But he gets added-value too. He gets who I am for my 12-12 Big-Master.
My 12-12 determines my 9-5. 12-12 is who I am.

Note: quote from Colossians 3:23 (NLT)

Week 48 Colossians

Yesterday I was thinking about Paul’s list of Things-To-Think-About…wondering what was involved in thinking about something I couldn’t visualize pictorially.
I wondered if it would make a difference to rewrite the list – an anti-list – a list of Things-Not-To-Think-About. I negativized Paul’s list: don’t fix your thoughts on what is false and dishonorable and wrong. Don’t think about things that are impure and ugly and despicable. Don’t think about things that are inferior and contemptible… Changing the polarity didn’t help. My anti-list didn’t have any physical realness either. No real-world tactility for my thinking to latch onto.
So anyway Philippians 4 was still in the back of my mind today when I landed on this: let heaven fill your thoughts. Do not think only about things down here on the earth. Okay this more or less confirms what Paul said in Philippians but I’m still left wondering: how am I supposed to let heaven fill my thoughts? Fortunately for me this time Paul doesn’t leave me hanging. He tacks on some Actionables to Avoid – sexual-sins sexual-impurity lust evil-desires greed anger rage malicious-behavior slander foul-language lying…like that. So…something tangible I actually can think about doing.
Paul’s list of Principles-To-Think-About can convert – potentially – into some real life applications.
I guess some people figure the bible is just Things-Not-To-Do but it’s actually a bit of a relief when I know what can and can’t be done. It’s hard to do but better to know.

Note: quote from Colossians 3:2 (NLT); and see Colossians 3:5-6

Week 47 Philippians

I guess lots of people figure the bible is a book of Things-Not-To-Do so it’s a relief when Paul gives me a list of things I can do.
Here’s his eight Things-To-Do: fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise…
I think about this list and realize it’s not actually a list of Things-To-Do. It’s a list of Things-To-Think-About. So I’m not as relieved as I was.
I look at the eight items. None of the eight are material things. Paul is telling me to think about non-material abstractions. If a guy says “think about your dog” then I can think about my border collie – visualize him & have memories & think about taking him for a walk…like that. But if the guy says “think about beauty” that’s a different class of thinking-about. In the Dog Example I’m thinking about something that physically is but in the Beauty Example something that physically isn’t.
Personally I don’t have a huge problem accepting non-physicality. I figure I have some kind of selection-analysis-discrimination function in my brain to sort and manage different classes of things to think-about. But the bigger question & problem for me is how-do-I-do-that? What’s involved in thinking-about things that are non-materially real?
That’s the problem I’m left with right now.

Note: quote from Philippians 4:8-9 (NLT)

Week 47 Philippians

Paul stacks up a pile of his life-accomplishments in chapter three…then just knocks the pile down.
I think if I was a clinical psychologist I’d likely discourage Paul’s critical and unnecessarily negative self-view. I think I’d try to cautiously steer him in the direction of a little credit-where-credit-is-due. I think if I was administering a Retrospective Personal Inventory with a client like Paul I’d try easing him away from comments like this: I once thought all these things were so very important, but now I consider them worthless…Yes everything is worthless… If I was counselling Paul I’d hope to get him off this worthlessness-track. More look-on-the-bright-side.
On the other hand it’s not like Paul ended in a gloomily depressive place. His point wasn’t that his past accomplishments were worth absolutely zero-value. His point was that his past accomplishments were worth absolutely zero-value by contrast to what he had traded-up to. Which is different.
I think Paul’s main point was that he had an impressive portfolio of Self-Generated Goodnesses that was – let’s face it – pretty enviable. But on the road to Damascus he discovered he needed to be invested in Non-Self-Generated Goodnesses. He needed to piggy-back on someone else’s goodnesses because no matter how hard he tried his goodnesses weren’t good enough.
Paul described his trade like this: I’ve discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I may have Christ and become one with him.

Note: quotes from Philippians 3:8-9 (NLT)

Week 47 Ephesians

I usually figure I need to pay attention while I’m reading the bible but in Ephesians I find something I can legitimately disregard. Paul says something directly to – something exclusively for – married women. So I’m exempted. Still…even though it’s not for me I read it: you wives will submit to your husbands as you do to the Lord.
The verse isn’t my worry personally but I recognize it’s a rule that’d be a bit tricky for a wife to manage. We’re here in 21st century Alberta and it’s a cultural law that no woman would ever submit to her husband. I have a hypothetical appreciation of a wife deciding what-do-I-do-with-that?
What’s not so hypothetical for me is when I read a bit farther and Paul follows-up with something for men: you husbands must love your wives with the same love Christ showed the church.
Q: How difficult would it be for a wife to submit to her husband?
A: I’m not sure exactly but I’m guessing its roughly as difficult as it would be for a husband to love his wife the way Christ loved the church.
In the modern world I guess a wife who believes in the Lord would have to decide whether or not to pay any attention to Paul’s submit-to-your-husband idea. And across the gender-divide I figure a guy would be trying to figure if Paul’s love-your-wife-like-Christ-loves-the-church rule is disregardable.

Note: quotes from Ephesians 5:22, 25 (NLT)

Week 47 Corinthians

Paul: three different times I begged the Lord to take [my ailment] away. Each time he said, My gracious favor is all you need. My power works best in your weakness. So now I am glad to boast about my weakness, so that the power of Christ may work through me.
A Weak Man’s Prayer (after reading Paul): Okay. So this is where I’m at… what I’ve got…what I’ve got to deal with. I’ve prayed for relief…multiple times. Now it looks like I’m not getting out of this, not getting rid of my pain. I’m at the very front-edge of starting to understand what’s going on. For one thing you’re here with me. You said your grace was enough for me (and I hope that’s true). And I’m also starting to think that you actually prefer me being where I am right now. Not sure I totally agree but I’m thinking that you’re thinking that it’s better for me this way. You said your power is enhanced by my weakness. That my weakness is a better raw material for you than my strength. Your power is magnified – it shows up better – in my weakness. So my weakness isn’t exactly what I figure it is. I need to keep that in mind: my weakness isn’t so bad; my power maybe isn’t so helpful. My disability is a kind of optimal operating system for your power to run. So…thank you. Amen.

Note: quote from 2 Corinthians 12:8-9 (NLT)

Week 46 Corinthians

Paul: though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are quite small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us an immeasurably greater glory that will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see right now; rather we look forward to what we have not yet seen. For the troubles we see will soon be over, but the joys to come will last forever.
On a blank sheet I draw a diagonal line – top-left-to-bottom-right. I call it the Outer Me.
Another diagonal line – bottom-left-to-top-right – I call the Inner Me.
Along the Outer Me line I pencil in a few things Paul said or implied. Decline. Decay. Sensory inputs only. Temporal…temporary. Dead…Death – I write those last two in the bottom corner.
Along the Inner Me line I write renewal. Trans-sensory things…invisibles. Eternals. Lasting…Permanent.
So two different things are progressing or regressing in me. Different starting points. Different trajectories. Different destinations.
Near the end the Inner Me is reminded of two things. First that my present troubles are terminal; they won’t last very long. Short-term troubles vs. eternal joy.
Secondly that my present troubles – strangely enough – have two effects on Inner Me: a) they’re troublesome, obviously…but b) they eventually produce glory for me.
A time contrast: brief vs. permanent.
And a weight contrast: small & light-weight vs. substantial…heavy.
Outer Me & Inner Me. In a contest to determine where I land.

Note: quote from 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (NLT)

Week 46 Corinthians

Yesterday I was thinking about pain & suffering so I pay some attention when Paul starts talking about one of his own dilemmas: we were crushed and completely overwhelmed, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die.
Paul has things to say about troubles and I jot them down:
When I’m in trouble God can comfort me…
When I’m comforted then I can comfort other people…
If I comfort sufferers then I get back a bit of the Lord’s comfort…
Suffering can be a learning tool to help me rely more on the Lord…
When I’m suffering prayer can help.
Yesterday I was thinking about the question: if there’s a super-powerful god who’s a good-guy wouldn’t he get rid of suffering? But Paul hasn’t even a slight interest in that question. I try sketching out what he just said:
I draw a vertical comfort line coming down from the Lord to me…
Then a horizontal one going out from me to other sufferers…
And then one rebounding back to me from other sufferers…
An internal educational line spins in my head helping me learn reliance on the Lord…
And a dotted analgesic prayer line (or lines – maybe horizontal & vertical) that helps take the edge off.
The thinking and approach Paul takes to pain & suffering is a helpful one to know. But it’s a tough and effortful one to apply.

Note: quote from 2 Corinthians 1:8-9 (NLT). My paraphrased points are from 4-5, 4 & 6, 7, 9, & 11.