A GREAT WOMAN

by

By Ken Blue

“And it fell on a day, that Elisha passed to Shunem, where was a great woman; and she constrained him to eat bread. And so it was, that as oft as he passed by, he turned in thither to eat bread”. 2 Kings 4:8.  

What was it about this woman that she should go down in the annals of God’s Word as a “great woman”?

Her social graces were demonstrated in her insistence that the stranger, Elisha, partake of her hospitality. It did not occur to her it that time the importance of her invited guest. Hers was a pure act of kindness to strangers. 

Her spiritual perception was the result of her godliness. She perceived that this was a man of God, and she requested of her husband that they add a small room for this honored guest to use. The room was added and was simple. It met all the needs of the prophet. It contained a bed, a table, and a lamp.

In time, because of her kindness, Elisha asks what could be done to repay her hospitality. She requested that God give her a son. Elisha assured her that next spring she would embrace a son. A year later she gave birth. What joy must have filled her heart! As her kindness and service grew, so did her faith.

After a few years had passed, the young lad went into the field to join his father. Perhaps the sun was to hot for him and he was having a sunstroke. His father had him returned to his mother. At noon, the boy died. Rather than complaining or blaming God, she laid him on the bed of Elisha and sent for the prophet. This was a great demonstration of her faith. God used the prophet to reveal to her that she would have a son; the same God could use the prophet to restore him to life. Elisha came in haste. He prayed and life returned to the boy and the boy was returned to his mother.

Because of the wicked condition in Israel, Elisha announced to the king that seven years of famine was coming. These were Israel’s darkest days while in the land. “And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him to day, and we will eat my son to morrow. So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him: and she hath hid her son.” 2 Kings 6:28-29.

Elisha informs the “great woman,” who now appears to be a widow, to take her son and travel wherever she can to find food and shelter. She goes to the gentile land of the Philistines, where she remained for the seven years.

When the famine was over she returned to Israel. She discovers that her house, her land and all she had possessed was owned by others. She went to the king to beg for her house and land. The king was informed that she was the woman whose son Elisha had restored to life. Upon hearing this, the king said, “…Restore all that was hers, and all the fruits of the field since the day that she left the land, even until now.” 2 Kings 8:6. Not only was all she lost restored, everything the land had produced during the seven years was added to it!

Notice: She was a great woman, but childless. She was great, but her child died. She was great, but her husband died. She was great, but she was not spared the ravages of the famine. She was great, but sojourned seven years in a strange land. Greatness and godliness did not protect her from life’s heartaches, but her faith sustained her. God restored to her a hundredfold.

One cannot help but see a picture of the nation of Israel in the life of this woman. The famine forced them from their land. They have sojourned among the gentiles for 2000 years. They are returning to their land, but do not have full possession of it. They will cry to the King and all will be restored a hundredfold.

“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” Hebrews 13:2.

THE TRADITION TEST

by

TRADITION IN YOUR MINISTRY
tradition

By Ken Blue

“Him would Paul have to go forth with him; and took and circumcised him because of the Jews which were in those quarters: for they knew all that his father was a Greek.” Acts 16:3.

For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law.  To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you.” 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 .

It is possible, like the Jews, we too have allowed tradition to hinder our outreach and the Word of God. A good question is what would we give up or add in order to win more souls for Christ. I believe our answer may reveal just how strongly we are bound to tradition.

1.         Would you be willing to have services on another day instead of Sunday, if it meant you would reach more people?

2.         Would you be willing to change the order of your Sunday service, if it meant you would reach more people?

3.         Would you be willing to change the time of your service on Sunday, if it meant you would reach more people?

4.         Would you be willing to change the style of your preaching, if it meant you would reach more people?

5.         Would you be willing to change the decor and arrangement of your building, if it meant you would reach more people?

6.         Would you be willing to have your choir wear robes, if it meant you would reach more people?

7.         Are there musical instruments you would not use, even if using them meant you would reach more people?

8.         Would you be willing to change your music, if it meant you would reach more people?

9.         Would you be willing to use background music, if it meant you would reach more people?

10.       Would you be willing to face the wrath of the brethren, if it meant you would reach more people?

Now, there is no guarantee that any of the changes would lead to reaching more souls for Christ. The point is, would you be willing to change if you knew it would? Your answer will reveal your value of souls and the ruts of tradition in your ministry.

A TOMB WITH A VIEW

by

By Ken Blue

 

Recently Joyce and I traveled to Wenatchee, WA where we grew up. Most of our deceased family members are buried there. Our purpose for the trip was to purchase our grave plots. I paid for all my funeral arrangements. If the rapture takes place before I need the plot, and you would like to have it, let me know and we can work out our arrangements.

Wenatchee is located in a beautiful valley with the Columbia River flowing through it. Wenatchee is on the west side of the river. East Wenatchee is on the east side. The value of my burial plot is its location. Not only does it have a perfect view of the river, but also the beautiful mountains and homes across the river are in perfect sight! What a deal!

Humanly speaking, it is perfect. However, in all seriousness, my view will be from heaven, regardless of whether I use that plot or not. Consider the following and join me. “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 5:8. “ But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.  For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.  For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:  Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.  Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. “ Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,  In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.  For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?  The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Corinthians 15:51-57. Let’s tune up and be ready to sing this song with Paul very soon.

SEARCHING FOR SOMEONE TO BLAME

by

PLAYING THE BLAME GAME

By Ken Blue blame

Should we blame Wanda Sykes, who said at the White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday, May 9th ,  Limbaugh is a terrorist and a traitor and suggested that he be “tortured and wished him dead.” Someone stated, “Sykes is not the most balanced of people.”

Perhaps the late night talk show host and comedians who target conservatives and independents constantly had some influence on Jared L. Loughner.

Should his parents be blamed? Who should have understood him more than them?

Where, oh where, can we find someone to blame? Remember, never fail to exploit a crisis. Blame your opponent and promote your agenda. Examples: Perhaps it was Arizona’s illegal alien laws that caused him to go crazy. Could it be their gun laws? (Seems to me they have more killings in Chicago and L. A. in one day, than all the murders in Arizona in a year.) Could it be, that Arizona is too concretive? Maybe it was the fault of the college that removed him from the campus for misconduct, or the military that deemed him unfit for service. Or, perhaps it was your fault! Whatever we do, we must not blame Loughner. That would not serve anyone’s purpose.

Much of the information is gleaned from the New York Times, Jan. 11, 2012.

“TUCSON — The police were sent to the home where lived with his family on more than one occasion before the attack here on Saturday…”

“A friend of Mr. Loughner’s also said in an interview on Tuesday that Mr. Loughner, 22, was skilled with a gun — as early as high school — and had talked about a philosophy of fostering chaos.” “The account by Mr. Loughner’s friend, someone close to Mr. Loughner, added details to the emerging portrait of the suspect and his family.” “He was a nihilist and loves causing chaos, and that is probably why he did the shooting, along with the fact he was sick in the head.”

NOTE: American Heritage Dictionary: ni·hil·ism  1. Philosophy. a. An extreme form of skepticism that denies all existence. b. A doctrine holding that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. 2. Rejection of all distinctions in moral or religious value and a willingness to repudiate all previous theories of morality or religious belief. 3. The belief that destruction of existing political or social institutions is necessary for future improvement. 4. Also Nihilism. A diffuse, revolutionary movement of mid 19th-century Russia that scorned authority and tradition and believed in reason, materialism, and radical change in society and government through terrorism and assassination. 5. Psychiatry. A delusion, experienced in some mental disorders, that the world or one’s mind, body, or self does not exist.

“The new details from Mr. Gutierrez about Mr. Loughner — including his philosophy of anarchy and his expertise with a handgun, suggest that the earliest signs of behavior that may have ultimately led to the attacks started several years ago. Mr. Gutierrez said his friend had become obsessed with the meaning of dreams and their importance. He talked about reading Friedrich Nietzsche’s book “The Will To Power” and embraced ideas about the corrosive, destructive effects of nihilism — a belief in nothing. And every day, his friend said, Mr. Loughner would get up and write in his dream journal, recording the world he experienced in sleep and its possible meanings.

“Jared felt nothing existed but his subconscious,” Mr. Gutierrez said. “The dream world was what was real to Jared, not the day-to-day of our lives.” And that dream world, his friend said, could be downright strange. “He would ask me constantly, ‘Do you see that blue tree over there?’ He would admit to seeing the sky as orange and the grass as blue,” Mr. Gutierrez said. “Normal people don’t talk about that stuff.” He added that Mr. Loughner “used the word hollow to describe how fake the real world was to him.” As his behavior grew more puzzling to his friends, he was getting better with a pistol. Starting in high school, Mr. Loughner honed his marksmanship with a 9-millimeter pistol, the same caliber weapon used in the attack Saturday, until he became proficient at handling the weapon and firing it quickly. “If he had a gun pointed at me, there is nothing I could do because he would make it count,” Mr. Gutierrez said. “He was quick.”

“After his arrest for possession of drug paraphernalia in 2007, Mr. Loughner was ordered to attend a diversion program run by the county attorney’s office. The chief deputy county attorney, Amelia Craig Cramer, said the program is intended for first-time offenders who have no history of violence or serious mental illness. Mr. Loughner was referred to an approved drug education program, and completed the required sessions in 30 days. But the program is primarily educational, Ms. Cramer said, focused on “the dangers of drugs and the dangers of substance abuse,” rather than the kind of in-depth counseling that friends, including Mr. Gutierrez, strongly felt that Mr. Loughner needed.

“It got worse over time,” Mr. Gutierrez said. He said he stopped talking to Mr. Loughner last March, when their interactions grew increasingly unpredictable and troubling. “He would call me at 2 a.m. and asked, ‘Are you hanging out in front of my house, stalking me?’ He started to get really paranoid, and said he did not want to see us anymore and did not trust us,” Mr. Gutierrez said, referring to himself and another friend. “He thought we were plotting to kill him or steal his car.”  

Evidence seized from Mr. Loughner’s home, about five miles from the shooting, indicated that he had planned to kill Ms. Giffords, Democrat of Arizona, according to documents filed in Federal District Court in Phoenix. Special Agent Tony M. Taylor Jr. of the F.B.I. said in an affidavit that an envelope found in a safe in the home bore these handwritten words: “I planned ahead,” “My assassination” and “Giffords.”

Mr. Loughner had dropped out of college and become increasingly erratic in recent months, so much so that others around him began to worry. He had posted on his Myspace page at some point a photograph of a United States history textbook, on top of which he had placed a handgun. He prepared a series of Internet videos filled with rambling statements on topics including the gold standard, mind control and SWAT teams. And he had started to act oddly during his classes at Pima Community College, causing unease among other students.

That behavior, along with a disturbing video, prompted school administrators to call in Mr. Loughner’s parents to tell them their son had been suspended and would have to get a mental health evaluation to return to college. Instead, he dropped out in October, a spokesman for the college said.

A series of short videos posted on the Internet, apparently by Mr. Loughner, consist of changing blocs of text that are largely rambling and incoherent. Many take the form of stating a premise and then a logical conclusion that would follow from it.

They speak of being a “conscience dreamer”; becoming a treasurer of a new currency; controlling “English grammar structure”; mentioned brainwashing and suggested that he believed he had powers of mind control.

“In conclusion, my ambition — is for informing literate dreamers about a new currency; in a few days, you know I’m conscience dreaming!” he wrote in one video, which was uploaded to YouTube on Dec. 15.

Still, some strands of recognizable political thought are woven among the more incoherent writings. Another video, for example, says debts should only be paid in currency that is backed by gold and silver.

One of his videos also suggests that he may have applied to join the Army at a recruiting station in Phoenix. It says he received a miniature Bible before taking tests there, and that he did not write a belief on his application form, so a recruiter wrote “none.”

Army officials said Saturday night that he had tried to enlist but had been rejected for military service. Paul Schwalbach, the spokesman for the Pima Community College, said one video that Mr. Loughner had prepared was considered particularly troubling by campus administrators, motivating them to suspend Mr. Loughner in September. College “police and other officials viewed it and found it very disturbing,” he said. After he was suspended, Mr. Loughner and his parents met with administrators, who said he would require a mental health clearance if he wanted to return to college. It could not be learned on Saturday whether Mr. Loughner ever saw a psychiatrist or other professional or received a diagnosis of mental illness.

But the rambling, disconnected writings and videos he has left on the Web are consistent with the delusions produced by a psychotic illness like schizophrenia, which develops most often in the teens or 20s.

In one extended Internet posting, Mr. Loughner suggested that the government was trying to trick him, or take advantage of him, although he never explained exactly what caused these concerns.

He also prepared a video that he called “My Final Thoughts: Jared Lee Loughner!”

“All humans are in need of sleep. Jared Loughner is a human. Hence, Jared Loughner is in need of sleep,” he wrote. He also briefly discusses terrorism.

“If I define terrorist then a terrorist is a person who employs terror or terrorism, especially as a political weapon. I define terrorist,” he wrote. If you call me a terrorist then the argument to call me a terrorist is Ad hominem. You call me a terrorist.”

On the morning of the day of the shooting, he posted a message on his Myspace account hinting that he was going away. “Goodbye,” he wrote at about 5 a.m. “Dear friends . . . Please don’t be mad at me.” (All italic of this article, mine.)

NOTE: There is no doubt that Jared Loughner is sick in the head. However, there are certain diets you do not give sick people. It only makes them sicker. The constant use of drugs, his music, and his reading list only fuelled his deranged mind. His reading list is: Animal Farm, Brave New World, The Wizard Of OZ, Aesop Fables, The Odyssey, Alice Adventures Into Wonderland, Fahrenheit 451, Peter Pan, To Kill A Mockingbird, We The Living, Phantom Toll Booth, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Pulp, Through The Looking Glass, The Communist Manifesto, Siddhartha, The Old Man And The Sea, Gulliver’s Travels, Mein Kampf, The Republic, Meno.

The above reading materials could be processed objectively by a mentally stable individual, but a person like Jared Loughner, who was detached from reality, would not be able to. No one should be blamed for his action except Jared Loughner.

HOW TO ORGANIZE THE BOOKS IN THE BIBLE

by

By Ken Blue

 

Recently I posted an article on how to organize the Old Testament. The divisions contained the following numbers: 5,12,5,5,12. Check that blog for details.

When organizing the New Testament, we must follow a different path. Instead of counting books consist of two or more with the same name, we simply identify them as one for ease of memory. For example, we will organize them like this:

Matthew-Acts: History (5)

Romans-Philemon: Church epistles (10)

Hebrews-Jude: Jewish epistles (5)

Revelation: Prophecy (1)

Now, as you can see, we have them is four sections, 5-10-5-1, for ease of memory.

Although Corinthians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Peter, and John have more than 1 epistle, in the division we count them as one. That will give you a count of 21. Add the extra six and you have the 27.  

Thus in the O. T. you have 5-12-5-5-12. These consist of each book, making 39. In the N. T. you have 5-10-5-1. These consist of each recipient or author, but not each book. This makes 21+6=27.