Previously On The Layman...

Divestment call 'bold and beautiful'
December 7, 2004
The call to divest from multinational corporations with ties to Israel was one of the boldest and most beautiful moves the church in general has made for a long time. The action only strengthens my feelings that the Presbyterian denomination is one that is filled with people who make a habit out of study and prayerful consideration on important aspects of faith.

It does pain me however to read some of the comments of other lay people who feel that the church's decision was in error and that, in fact, Israel's position and "right to defend" itself were not being taken into account before the decision was made.

To those, I would ask, or better, plead that they follow the footsteps of those who made the decision and rely on their own research to come to conclusions before passing judgment on the General Assembly. By that I mean more than what Fox News and CNN can piece together and spoon feed to the American public.

To date, 3,492 Palestinians have died since September 30, 2000. Compare this to the 986 Israelis who have died in the same span. Fully 20 percent of the intifada victims were Palestinian children. Consider also that while some organizations resort to terrorist tactics the large portion of those deaths have been civilian casualties while the Israeli losses have been almost entirely within the ranks of their armed forces.

Think also of the numerous American peace workers who have been killed by Israeli armed forces. Rachel Corrie, the American girl who refused to move when an Israeli Defense Force (IDF) Caterpillar was going to tear down her host family's home. The bulldozer simply drove over her, crushing her to death. A sniper shot Brian Avery, from North Carolina, in the face, while he was trying to carry two children off the street during a tear gas attack by the IDF.

Over and over again IDF and the Israeli government have proven to be callous and unwilling to find a solution that acknowledges the Palestinian people as having the right to life, and to a quality of life that all people all people deserve. Israel breaks international rights laws over and over and the UN has condemned its actions more than once. Most recently, the UN voted unanimously (with the exception of the US) that the Wall in Israel was an apartheid action and the World Court declared it unlawful to continue.

Yet the Israeli government ignores them, and the US has yet to withdraw its support-encouraging injustice with its silence.

The action by PCUSA is a bold and brilliant stand that makes exactly the right statement to the world and our own country. We recognize that the situation in Israel and Palestine is complex beyond measure and has been raging for 50 years and more. Yet we as a church will not support oppression – even when that oppression may be described as "deserving." This was never the way of Christ. And that will never be the way of the church that follows him.

SHUT THE HELL UP --WHINERS!

BBC just had an article in it about the Israeli "refugees." These are, let me remind you, the Jewish "settlers" who were on Palestinian territory completely illegally. Recently when the Israeli government decided to recall those settlers there were a whole slew of people who felt that it was unfair, blah, blah, blah. Basically, lets not forget what really is going on. For comparison. Imagine you live in the US, or in Texas, more precisely. And Mexicans came across the border into Texas and simply started building three story condos in prime Texas real estate. Then the Mexican army came and build walls around them and protected the Mexican settlers with force of arms: tanks, guns, etc. Sounds like a shitty deal, right? Sounds like grounds for war doesn't it?
THAT was the situation in Palestine, in Gaza. Still is the situation in West Bank, actually.

Well the interview was a frigin' train wreck, but one spot was so fabulous I had to share it with you. First we have this couple:

The Sapersteins, who are "Refugees." First off, THE ARE LIVING IN A FUCKING HOTEL. They are staying in the "Jerusalem Gold" hotel, WHICH THE STATE OF ISRAEL IS PAYING FOR. Wow. Refugees. Life is hard I can imagine. Man. Must be awful.

For comparison, here is a Palestinian Refugee camp.


OK? These are real refugees. Live in a tent, wonder about clean water, cook over a hole in the ground, and cover your poop with dirt. THEN you are a fucking refugee you selfish Jewish shit eaters!

I was agog at this family's testimony. They had nothing but complaints. And then, here is the kicker--THEY ARE FROM BROOKLYN. They moved to Israel from the US!? And then feel like they have the right to complain about it when things are set even the least little bit right?

Please, people, at the very least don't have the audacity to call yourself refugees, or to call what you are going through "suffering." You're on a fucking vacation.

Vet'rans' Day

Veterans Day. Originally Armistice Day, until a few more wars had passed and we realized what a farce the name actually was. So, as opposed to naming the day after peace, we name it in honor of the role of dead who went before to guard that peace.

It’s all very patriotic, only slightly less so than the Fourth of July, and close enough to election day for the politico to make one last stand in front of the big top. Generally it becomes very hard not to become jaded and sickened by the whole commercial ordeal of it all.

Here’s something to try though. Visit with some of the veterans. Hold a small intimate dinner for them and tell no one. Spend the time trying to draw out what experiences they will share. You faith will be re-inspired by the simple sacrifice of those men and women who did what they did for a cause they felt close to. I wonder in another 30 years what our veterans will be? Not to overly glorify the events of the first two “Great” Wars, but if nothing else, they had the most excellent forms of propaganda in those days. The country truly was unified, in a gross majority sense of the word. In this most recent fighting debacle, what will the veterans recount? The needless loss they felt?

But I didn’t set out to, yet again, discuses the absurdities of the current war. But instead to take the holiday to highlight the enormous, un-American spirit that has gripped the country. Also to, perhaps, bring you all some shocking truth.

America is a Christian Nation. It was founded by Christian thinkers, based on Christian morality, and governed for a long while adhering to Christian precepts. Only recent has the perversion of the separation of church and state become the mantra for “freedumb” lovers coast to coast. Here’s a great example: You know ole George W? No, no that one… the Good One. George Washington, Gen. His first official act ad the first president of the country was to not only post a national day of “thanksgiving and prayer” but to also proclaim, “It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God.” A God fearin’ man if ever there was one.

Now don’t let the maniacal ravings of the most recent George put you off the idea of a Christian Nation. The man is a loon, which only means that we should adhere all the more strongly to what the founding fathers laid out.

This is a Christian nation. The separation of church and state is meant to protect the CHURCH, not the other way around. The country still should be based on Christian morality. Don’t like it? Move for heavens sake! For too long Americans have thought that it is an inalienable right to get what ever they damn well want at any time. Well princess, it’s not. And I’m not saying that I agree 100% with the morality of the country, but the fact is that is how it was designed. So, either admit that you are vying for a change, or take things how they are. But for heavens sake, don’t twist around the ideas that were laid down in good faith to serve the secular! You’re just confusing everyone! And they aren’t that smart to start with!

I’ll leave with a quote from Tommy Jefferson: “Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.”

Short Short Story

Eyes of a Child

“Daddy?” There came a small tug on the sleeve of the sleeping man. He had collapsed in his chair after dinner and meant only to watch a few minute of television. At his arm, he knew without even opening his eyes that his small girl stood impatiently.
“Mmm. What Wendi?” the father replied lazily, eyes still closed. There were some in his small circle of friends that he had infinite patience with his daughter. Truth be told it wasn’t as hard as they thought.
He felt hands smooth over his face. “Open your eyes Daddy,” his girl said impatiently.
Chuckling he did so, his eyes clearing the blur and holding his daughters form. Her vision was a birth defect, but to a father his daughter is always perfect to behold.
“Daddy,” knowing now that she held his full attention—she accepted nothing less.
“Tell me a story for bedtime.” It was both a question and a command, in that innocent yet manipulative way that only a woman, no matter the age, is able to achieve.
He rubbed a hand over his own face, clearing away the cobwebs, “All right kiddo, any special requests tonight?” He was solidly built, and lifted her easily and giggling into the air to his lap.
“Yes, yes. Your trip to Europe.” At this her father smiled, because he knew that the unspoken request was truly the story of my mother. It was a household favorite for comfort, for good dream, for any number of things.
Wendi's father smiled warmly at his daughter's request, and he remembers the thousands of times he has told her the story of he and her mother's picnic in the Netherlands. His daughter had never asked for a fantasy story, she constantly wanted the stories that he knew of other people's lives. He didn't mind repeating the stories so much, though, they were pretty much all they had left of her mother.
He took a deep breath. “All right kiddo, ready?” she squirmed around a little as she found a comfortable spot and settled in against his chest.
"Ready"
"Well, our day started at the little hotel where we were staying. The day was bright and warm for the north. It was only spring, and even though the day wasn’t completely cloudless it was sunny out." His mind wandered briefly as he remembered the days of simply teaching his little girl what words meant. Her tutor suggested he take an active part, which was easy, but Wendi’s inquisitive mind seemed to always want more. More than once they were up past any normal child’s birthday feeling sand and finding words to describe it. Clouds were difficult. They finally settled that clouds appeared soft, like cotton, and were light and misty, like water from a spray bottle. It was amazing to him every day the way her mind grasps and saw these things. Humans were such visual creatures. To Wendi though, a sunny day meant warmth on the skin, certain breezes. Clouds were brief pauses of chill, that she could feel move across her. “I had gotten out of bed before your mother and had ordered some breakfast to come up to the room. I had toast and jam and a little tea, and she had pancakes with chocolate sprinkles--"
"Haggle, right Daddy?" she interrupted him.
"Yes dear." he never expected an inactive audience and took each outburst with loving stride.
"Yours wasn't very Hollish," she said disapprovingly.
"No dear, not very Hollish," he laughed joggling her on his lap, “but that's what I had.”
So the story went, event after event, interruption after interruption, and laughter following itself. Wendi's father told of how he and his wife took a canal boat to one of the parks that had been erected on a dike, and of how the sleek cranes puttered around at the edge of the water moving their long soft bodies against the warm sky behind them.
Wendi smiled and lifted her face or turned as if listening. He couldn’t really imagine what it was like to imagine a story based on everything but sight. Yet, when he spoke of warm sun her face turned as if feeling it. When there were birds or trams roaring by she turned her head, hearing in her mind. In a way he dearly appreciated the care he had to take in describing that day with his only love. It was an exceptional day. One that made a few of the other that were mediocre, or the once that were spent in a row over who left the train tickets where. But recalling all the “unimportant details” which Wendi was relentless in asking for, made it all the more vibrant a tale.
Early on in their story telling routine he wondered why she never seemed to want stories about dragons or princes. Instead she wanted only stories about his day, his week, his life before she came. Additionally she expected every detail, every nuance to be explained.
Then, he had an epiphany one day as he rose one morning to open the bind in his bedroom window. The room flooded with light and the warm morning hit him. He realized with a small start that this of course was what his daughter was doing. Remembering vicariously through him all the tactile experiences of his day. When he described kite flying as a boy, she felt the wind and the tug of it on the string. When he recalled his roommate in college and their dog Winston, she felt the fur, the bigness, the warm living thing on her face.
In that moment it unnerved him slightly because he realized that he carried so few tactile and auditory memories with him. Scent had always been a deep human memory, but the rest… What had his roommates voice really sounded like? How hard exactly did the kite pull, and how did it feel when its line snapped? These were of course the only things that mattered in the stories to his daughter.
As any good father would from then on he did his utmost to capture the things of life he, like so many others, were guilty of taking for granted. On the way to work he frequently closed his eyes on the train, remembering people by their voices, the sound of the train that day, differences in his route by things other than sight. What he found was even if there were things his daughter knew by touch, say a hot dog. She would tell him that one he had for lunch sounded different than the ones she had at home.
In so many ways she was a miracle in his life.
Her mother died in birthing her and the complications that he foresaw raising her alone were daunting. For years he raised her as best he could in a cloud of deep depression. His firm had a daycare luckily and the care-givers were deeply empathetic to his situation and Wendi’s needs. He spent all the time he could with her—her tutor said that proximity was still vitally important even to children who would never actually see the face of their parents. It did something surely, because now she said she could smell him the moment he entered the garage.
When she began speaking his darkness and depression took a deeper turn. In a terrible and black cosmic irony her first word was “eye.” Or more probably “I,” because, he reasoned, he caught himself rattling on to her in her infancy about “your mother and I.” But at the time it was more than he could take. Luckily his parents were more than happy to take his daughter for a few days while he “got himself together,” As his father had put it. In some kind of grandparent amazement they had adapted much swifter than he did. Somehow his mother had found baby books in Braille. In those few days he ran the gamut of his lowest and highest point. The lowest when he sat drunk on the floor, railing at the sky, tears streaming his face. The highest was almost a week later when his mother called one afternoon to report his daughter had said her second word. “Hug.” She had said it when she was wrapping a bottle of his cologne for Christmas. She related to him how, over a number of tests—his mother, ever the scientist—she concluded that it was in fact the cologne she was associating. “She a brilliant girl, my dear,” she had said, “and it quite obvious she misses her father.”
So it was that for many more years, “Hug” really meant daddy. As is the way for childhood pet names it was replaced, but he would always miss little arms upraised and the chant of “hug, hug.”
She was his light in this life. Not only giving him the purpose and focus to raise and love and be with her, but also rekindling the love for life he thought snuffed out with his wife.
Now that she was older, she cared for him just as much as he did for her. She read incessantly, her fingers had even become lightly calloused, and so was probably smarter than he was. And had regulated him to no more than one scotch week which had always been a particular after work weakness for him, but she was impossible to get around. She sniffed him out no matter were in the house he was and could hear a screw cap or a decanter top from the other end of it. He had no choice but to comply, or drink in the car, and pride kept him from that.
As the story rode on to its conclusion, with his and his wife’s long kiss in front of the hotel doorman, Wendi was of course already drowsing. He smiled down at her, involuntarily. She was his perfect girl.

Fiction Writings...

Trains

I was having that same day dream all over again. The one where I don’t really know you yet. All I see is you, this dark clad mystery woman who is walking along-side of a train as it pulls into the station. You look older, but in a younger period of time, a time when trains were still all the rage for travel. I see you from afar as I seem to be just hanging around waiting for you to appear and come into my life. You’re looking for something, or someone though I hope to myself that it’s not the latter. You keep looking down and up from the ticket you hold in your hand to the signs posted above. It seems like one of those commercials that you watch on TV, in fact I think in my real life I’m doing just that, watching one of those sappy commercials and thinking of you instead of the woman selling my perfume or nylon stockings. But in my head the way you look I would buy anything from you if you had the notion to walk up to me and say, “Pardon me sir, but you look as if you could use ‘Librederm Shampoo’.” My only reply would be to look in those stark brown eyes of yours and reply that ‘Librederm’ was in fact the very thing that I had been searching for my whole life.
My real fear is that it won’t happen like that at all. My real fear is that you’ll find that train car that you’re looking for long before you even glance my way, and you‘ll board that train and I’ll be whimsically looking after it as the steam hisses out and the train starts away. End of Film, fin, that’s all folks. That’s my real fear. That for some reason there is some other dapperly dressed high society man sitting on the train in the car you’re looking for, and it’s him that your mind is on not even knowing that somebody has been watching your whole being as you approached them even for a few brief moments in time. That I had made those moments out to be the study of a lifetime; the bounce of your hair as walked, the flutter of your lashes, the strides you took, the shift in the hem of you dress as you came, undaunted, wary and confident. I hope that there isn’t someone on that train.
Then I realize that these are, after all, my thoughts and I can have happen whatever I feel like. So instead of boarding the train you pause. You have the feeling of someone looking at you as you stare at your ticket and I, head half cocked am looking back at you. Hands in my pockets I half hope that you look up to see me standing there, but don’t know what I should do if that happens. You’re studying you ticket intently now looking for your car.
“Help you miss?” It is just like they do in the movies; I come up before you and ask, and you flutter for a moment and reply ‘No, thank you.’ I tip my hat a bit and smile as I start away, my heart leaping at the meeting of this mysterious woman.

For The Record

There seems to be some uproar about some things that the new Islamic president of Iran said about the Country of Israel. If, by living under some moss covered rock in the woods, you haven't heard President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Israel should be "wiped off the map," which in the first place is not a new sentiment in ANY WAY for the leaders of Iran, so it's odd that the world should be so shocked by it. And second, the guy has a point.
As I am sure readers by now know this is not a new issue for this site, but to reiterate; Israel is a country that was imposed on an indigenous people who had their own country and form of government. They were supported by weapons and monies from the western world and continue to persecute and humiliate the Palestinians whose homes they have commandeered.
Just so every one knows. Israel is a horrible country with more blood on its hands than the U.S. (ZING!). In the second place (and this seems to be the real point everyone is missing) you can have a problem with Israel and NOT have a problem with the Jewish people. THEY ARE NOT SYNONYMOUS!! The state of Israel was created by militant ZIONISTS who, in no way, represent the whole censuses of the Jewish people.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION
This is really bothersome about the whole issue. You say, Israel is a horrible place and people are immediately up your ass about being a bigoted anti-Semite or something. Hey. The Jews are great man, I love the Jews, and sure they deserve their own country, but do they deserve to crush another people to do it? FUCK NO!
Tom Lantos a Californian Congressman only proves this ignorant point to its conclusion with his statement that "The leader of Iran made one of the most repugnant remarks the international community has heard since Adolf Hitler." Now, Tom seems like a pretty good guy from what I can tell, so I am going to assume he is just jumping on the bandwagon and is just horribly uniformed about the last 50 years of Israeli history, as opposed to being a total shitter.
The leader of Iran is NOTHING LIKE ADOLF HITLER. Let's Review. Hitler wanted the Jews wiped off the face of the earth. The President of Iran wants Israel, the Country, the political boundary, wiped from the face of the earth.
"One of these things is not like the other...."
Please. Is it possible that for once we can think and read and research before we just react by rote and start slavering with hate at the first mention of anything anyone from the middle east says?

Modelus Operandi

1Thessalonians 1:2-10
"2We always thank God for all of you, mentioning you in our prayers. 3We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

4For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, 5because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake. 6You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. 7And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. 8The Lord's message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it, 9for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, 10and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath."
__________________________

My parents both grew up in a city in WV named Huntington. My mother’s father was a chemical engineer at a nearby nickel processing plant, and my father’s father owned a soda fountain and sundries store in downtown and never even owned a car. I blame these facts when it comes to light how little I know about cars. Growing up my dad’s family never even owned a car, and my mother was the girl in her family and in addition I’m not sure that my grandfather knew anything to teach her about cars regardless. So my brother and I grew up without the knowledge, though I remember many times my brother, dad, and I would go to car shows at the mall and goggle at the sleek designs. Cars were appreciated, but more for their aesthetics than their engines.
By the time I was 13 or 14, I took the fascination with the chasse to a different level. I started making model cars. Not running models mind you, but even those plastic ones had an engine you were required to assemble, to some degree, and I was able to come out of it with a rudimentary knowledge of the inner workings. At least enough not to embarrass myself in front of friends. At least enough to stand in front of a temperamental vehicle with the hood up and stare thoughtfully into it. “Well, you see ah, that’s the serpentine belt, and that looks ok. And that’s your oil filter down there, and the air filter. This is wear the sparkplugs are, alternator…” “So do you know why it won’t start?” “Nope. Not a clue.” I think that most men think that people will assume you know what you are doing if you stare thoughtfully at something long enough.
But, models are good at teaching us. We can perhaps remember some sort of physiology model from our classroom days, the human torso, or the human eye. In something of that same way, we can learn from this lesson that Paul has written about the church of Christ.
For a little background on the text let me tell you that Thessalonica was the capitol of Macedonia, which was one of the two Grecian provinces the Romans had established. The northern was Macedonia and the southern was Achaia. The church was fairly early in its time away from Paul, who has fled the city to avoid persecution, thinking that the church would be better off. What happened was much the opposite and the church there is one of the most persecuted. Yet, at the time of Paul’s writing the church is flourishing. In later passages Paul says that the church is our (meaning he and Silas and Timothy) “glory and joy,” and in several passages he seems just to be reminding them of things he knows that they knew. There is a point where he states, “on the teachings of brotherly love—you have no need of them!”
We are in luck to be studying the first part of this passage that basically outlines for us the point of pride that Paul feels in this church. According to Paul this is a model church, and he goes on to describe four (4) benchmarks that are part of what makes them such.
(1) It starts in earnest with verse 6. “And you became imitators of us and of the Lord.” This is the aspiration of every preacher, pastor, deacon, elder, and member—all Christians strive to become true imitators of the true source. Martin Luther dubbed believers ‘little Christs,’ the connotation in German being that we should basically be ‘chips off the old block.’ To me, and my warped science fiction loving brain, I think of it as a genetic sample. Every genetic sample of any person or living things keeps, in tact, the entire genetic code of the original. If we then, being creations of the living Christ, pieces of His makeup, we should retain the entire code of behavior and ethics. Of course in reality it is only through continuing study and the leading of the holy spirit that we can discern the nature of Christ, and often times this may involved heavy revision in our thinking from time to time. So in the first point Paul shares with us that the model church has ministers – a job for all believers’ not just ordained clergy – who preach the word, live it and dwell within the Holy Spirit, as we know Christ and Paul did.
(2) Immediately after that Paul hands us the second aspect of the model church. “…for you received the word, in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit.” The Bible in basic English states it “after the word had come to you in much trouble, with joy in the Holy Spirit.” What this boils down to is the persecution the church is suffering, as I said before. Christianity was not an easy religion in those times. I find it most difficult to imagine not only the theological and life changing implications of a life as a Christian but also to heap upon that the physical hardship or doing it behind the roman’s backs. I don’t know if anyone here has ever traveled to China or Russia before the fall of Communism, but there too is a taste of what the Thessalonians are dealing with daily. And yet, we find that they are not only receiving the text and embodiment of the Word of God , but are also finding in that their joy.
I am often shammed by the actions of people in countries much less prosperous than my own. When I first got out of college some of my family and I went to Palestine to see Bethlehem and some of the other Holy sites. While we were there we also visited an acquaintance of my uncle’s who was a Melkite priest in a town named Iblin. Over the past 10 years or so he had built a school there, during a time when the Israeli government was destroying not building. He went through channels and got the required permits and his school now thrives. While we were there I met a girl who was graduating with high honors and hoped to attend a college in Europe. Later the priest told us that she and her brothers walked 6 miles one way through 2 security checkpoints to get to school. It took them nearly 2 hours, 4 hours total a day. I was never more embarrassed of my “B” average than I was at that moment.
So it is with the early church. They are dealing with a strife and life of secrecy that we will never know, and yet they do it anyway, and more so meet it with joy. We in the church today know persecution as well, but to compare with my friend in Palestine, I too had to walk to school growing up as she did—it took me 6 minutes at the most.
(3) The third piece of our puzzle is that the members of the church in Thessalonica are a blessed example. Paul says that they “…became an example to all believers in Macedonia and Achaia.” Remember that these are the two provinces of Greece. North and South. Paul then goes on to say that their “…faith in God has gone everywhere, so that we need not say anything, for they themselves report…” The word is out about the church in Thessalonica! Being the lamp on the lamp stand giving light to the whole household is a integral part of being the model church. Paul has internalized the truth of Christ’s teachings and knows that a healthy church of Christ is not complete, or whole, or righteous unless they are a beacon to the rest of the world of everything that God holds dear. As Paul describes it he doesn’t even need to pick up a newspaper or get an emailed report about the things that the church there in Greece is doing—he hears it from everyone.
For the span of Christ’s teachings, by that I mean the three years he was in ministry on earth, we have relatively little to go by. That can only mean that every word we have is precious and written and said with power and the spirit behind them. Christ makes not one but two separate examples of the Christians duty to the world. Illuminate it—Flavor it! When it’s pitch dark out and someone flicks on the light, you know it’s there you can zero in on it! When you are cooking and leave out the salt—you know that it is missing! These are the instructions for each Christian and the church then; be known in the world; make the world miss your presence when you are gone; be something that world yearns for.
(4) The final note is one concerning God’s sovereignty. Though I didn’t notice it was until I read from another author. Paul tells of how the church “…turn[s] to God from Idols to serve…”
John Walvoord in 1973 made the note that the order of the phrase in Greek dictates that Paul meant the people of the church turned to God first, and then turned from their idols.
This is the only way that we as individuals can come into the power of God. We must never wait on our own goodness. We cannot try and persevere to be better people before coming to God or the church. That is a reliance on our own power and I tell you a profanity to the nature of our faith. Instead, we must turn to God first, allowing His power to not only transform us but to strengthen us truly, from within, from the wellspring of His power, and then, with that in our spirits, turn from the daily idolatry with which we deal. To do any less would like taking a beautiful piece of cherry to a master cabinet maker and then, while he waits, picking away burs or nettles or sanding imperfections that you think you see in the wood. We will never have the Master’s eyes for the wood. Only His expertise can bring the truest beauty of the grain to the surface in a sturdy useful structure.
These four things then have earned the church of Thessalonica the praise of Paul. In his absence the church is still thriving, still holding to the precepts that he laid down for them, meeting in joy, receiving the Word of God, being examples to all others, and accepting God in the midst of their imperfect with truth and the want for a closer kinship with God.