Making Life Work

By: C. Roderick Martin

    European and American politicians continue to put off making the difficult choices required to avoid a financial meltdown, the likes of which the world has not seen. To date, the actions taken amount to little more than, “kicking the proverbial can down the road.” I liken these politicians to a man jumping off a 100-story building, falling 98 floors, and yelling, “Nothing has happened to me yet!” In the years to come, many will look back on this period with great regret and say, “We should have known.”

    When the dogwood first buds, we know spring is near. A red sky in morning means bad weather is coming. When the morning dew turns to frost, is winter not imminent? Did not Christ say, “When the fig tree’s branch...

By: John Klassek

    We had almost finished dinner at the restaurant when a man in a black suit approached us and asked whether he could perform a few magic tricks for us. I politely declined his offer.

    He then quite happily made his way to the next table. I couldn’t help but to curiously watch him ply his tricks there, and what he did was quite amazing. He threw a red ball into the air and it simply disappeared! The look of surprise and fascination was evident on the faces of everyone seated at that table. “Is seeing believing?” I wondered.

    A friend of mine once lamented that he had never seen any miracles in his life. He implied that our belief in what really matters might be enhanced by being witness to some supernatural...

By: Allie Dart

    Not long ago, in a discussion that followed a worship service, the conversation made its way to Judgment Day. Much to my surprise, three ministers in the group felt that because they had repented of their sins prior to baptism, that was good enough, and they would not have to stand on that sea of glass and face Jesus Christ for the sins they committed after baptism. We can settle that argument and find the biblical answer in Ronald Dart’s book, The Thread - God’s Appointments With History.

    “Most of what you hear about Judgment Day owes more to the imagination of man than to the Bible. . . As Paul said, ‘It is appointed for men to die once, but after...

By: Hugh Buchanan

    It was on a stiflingly hot day in July that Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain found himself on a wooded hillside in Southern Pennsylvania. Positioned there by his superior officer with 300 men, the remnant of the 20th Maine Regiment, his task was to defend Little Round Top, a small hill that protected the left flank of the Army of the Potomac. To lose this ground would mean the loss of the battle, loss of the army, the loss of the war, the loss of the Union. It was the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War.

    He took stock of his assets and liabilities. The 20th Maine held the superior position. Chamberlain’s men were experienced war veterans and were committed to their cause. On the other hand,...

By: Mardy Cobb

    What kind of example are you setting? Has anyone ever asked you this? We often resent this question when we hear it. Why? One reason: because we feel the person asking is accusing us. Another reason might be: We feel the person asking the question has no right to judge. In other words, we often want to reply, “I don’t care what you think.” By the way, we are often right about the person asking the question.

    Rather than taking offense at the thought of “example,” let’s try to see it from another angle. Example is not about other people’s opinion. Other people have opinions, and they may pass judgment. But that is an issue of judging. That is not an issue of example. We need to be careful not to let our resentment for false...

By: Hugh Buchanan

    In November of 2007 I accompanied my wife, Boni, to the funeral of Wanda, her dear lifelong friend. At the service, I experienced something remarkable and unexpected that lit up one Scripture for me in a way nothing except personal experience can do. I wasn’t close to Wanda. Although serious and sobered by the nearness of death, I was not gripped by the aching loneliness and sense of loss the death of a close friend or loved one brings.     At the service, as soon as Boni made eye contact with Wanda’s sister, they were drawn toward each other at a run, as if a magnetic force drew them. They threw their arms around each other. Their faces contorted in grimaces of anguish and grief and their eyes filled with tears. Their bodies...

By: Teeka Glasgow

    Bill Norrod was 17 years old and living in Corpus Christi, Texas, when World War II began. He longed to sign up and fight, and begged his mother to lie for him so he could join either the U.S. Navy or the Royal Canadian Air Force. She wouldn’t. He eventually enlisted in the Army Air Corps on December 4, 1942, and was stationed stateside before being sent overseas. Living in tents for two to three months in Oran, Algeria—a spy city much like Casablanca—Bill and other American soldiers awaited their orders. When they learned they were to go to India, it seemed the Germans learned of it too.

    To transport the soldiers, an old British cruise ship, the H.M.T. Rohna (built in 1926 for the purpose of carrying only 60 wealthy...

By: Stacey Shoemaker

    There is someone who is deeply invested in your child’s spiritual development. He has analyzed her personality for strengths and weaknesses. He knows the intricacies of her relationships with family and friends and has studied every possible angle to win her over. He has a masterful plan for influencing your child’s walk with God. That someone is Satan the Devil.

    Right now a war is being waged for the hearts and minds of our young people (Ephesians 6). The last two decades have seen a flurry of sociological research about Christianity which has revealed changes that have been previously unseen in American history. As Forrest Barry, author of a blog entitled, The Last Christian Generation? states, “The percentage...

By: Lenny Cacchio

My oldest daughter first saw the movie, Toy Story 3, while studying abroad. She thoroughly enjoyed the flick, but had to admit that, when viewed in Spanish, some of the humor was lost in translation.

Sometimes I wonder if the same thing doesn’t happen with the Bible. The Bible was composed originally in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, and includes almost every genre of literature we know—poetry, history, biography, legal commentary, drama, philosophical treatises, personal correspondence, and just flat-out good storytelling.

But what about humor? Does it get lost in the translation? Or were the biblical authors, a gang of disgruntled prophets, detached journalists, and pious poets who couldn’t be bothered with a bit of...

By: Allie Dart

    The adolescent years are difficult for parents and kids. As early to mid-teenagers gain their independence, they may not even want to be seen with their parents. Don’t let it throw you when you’re shopping in the mall with your kid and she doesn’t want to be seen with you. This is just one step in your teen declaring his or her independence. But what if she resents having to go to church with you? Should your teenager be given freedom of choice regarding religious beliefs and practices? A common phrase you’re likely to hear is, “I don’t want you cramming your religion down my throat.” So what do you do?

    You are not nearly as likely to have this happen if you have been consistent since birth indoctrinating your children...

By: Lenny Cacchio

In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. (II Samuel 11:1 NIV) I have some questions about this verse: 1. Was David a king? 2. What did kings do at that time of year? 3. If David was a king, what was he doing in Jerusalem instead of joining his men in the field?

    David stumbled, and these questions point to a reason why. David failed to do the work of a king. The nation was at war, but David stayed in Jerusalem where he could enjoy his perks of office, rest comfortably in his own bed, eat the best foods, and have others fulfill his...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    One day last winter my wife Diane was reading the first chapter of Joshua, and she asked a question I couldn’t answer. “Why is it that the phrase ‘Be strong and of good courage’ appears so many time in this chapter?”

    The question is a good one, and maybe even a better one than Diane thought. Not only do these words appear in Joshua 1, but also in Deuteronomy 31 where Moses aims “be strong and of good courage” at both Joshua and the people.

By: Lenny Cacchio

Turn ye again now every one from his evil way, and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that the LORD hath given unto you and to your fathers for ever and ever. (Jeremiah 25:5 KJV)

    If you are inclined to blame political leadership for all the wrong in our country, you need to rethink it. Sometimes political leadership is nothing more than a reflection of the people it represents, and that is especially true in a representative republic such as ours.     In the last chapter of II Samuel, King David makes an appalling mistake. At the time he is a powerful figure in the Middle East. He has conquered lands as far away as present-day Iraq and beyond. He has friendly relations with the Lebanese to the...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Once the trees went forth to anoint a king over them, and they said to the olive tree, ‘Reign over us!’ But the olive tree said to them, ‘Shall I leave my fatness with which God and men are honored, and go to wave over the trees?’ Then the trees said to the fig tree, ‘You come, reign over us!’ But the fig tree said to them, ‘Shall I leave my sweetness and my good fruit, and go to wave over the trees?’ Then the trees said to the vine, ‘You come, reign over us!’ But the vine said to them, ‘Shall I leave my new wine, which cheers God and men, and go to wave over the trees?’ Finally all the trees said to the bramble, ‘You come, reign over us!’ And the bramble said to the trees, ‘If in truth you are anointing me as king over you,...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    He sits in the dungeon, knowing that before the day is over he will be executed in the most brutal manner that Roman law allows. He’ll be scourged within a hair’s breadth of death, and then nailed to a stake to die slowly and painfully, paying for his crimes of insurrection and murder against the powerful Roman occupier.     Less than a half mile away, a powerful Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, fearing for his own career and life, struggles between the demands of both expediency and justice. An obviously innocent man has been railroaded into his presence. The religious leaders for whatever reason want him dead, a gruesome task that Roman law won’t let them carry out themselves, and hence their invitation to Pilate to do...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    “A rabbi and a priest walk into a bar.” Ever hear a story begin like that? If you have, you are probably waiting for a laugh line about now. I wonder what Jesus’ listeners were thinking when he opened his act with, “a rabbi and a tax collector walk into the temple.” I wonder if they were looking for a laugh line too. So let’s put the story into the vernacular and maybe hear what the listeners heard and how they heard it. You’ll find the original version in Luke 18:9-14. A Pharisee and a tax collector walk into the temple. The Pharisee goes right up to God and says, “Hey, Lord! Look at me! Aren’t I a great guy? I don’t steal, I don’t cheat, I don’t run around on my wife. I do all the stuff I’m supposed to do....

By: Lenny Cacchio

    And He’s not a Democrat either. From what I know of the Man, he has better things to do than to align himself with various factions vying for political power. Ultimately, he has all of that in abundance anyway.     It’s instructive that even though Jesus held many positions in common with the Pharisees (resurrection of the dead, acceptance of all the Hebrew Scriptures and not just the Torah, belief in angels), he never once identified himself as a Pharisee. It is also instructive that he socialized with people from all backgrounds and factions, including Pharisees (Luke 11, John 3), Samaritans (John 4), people from Herod’s household (Luke 8), Roman soldiers (Matthew 8), Gentiles (Mark 7), fisherman (Matthew 4), publicans...

By: Lenny Cacchio  





    Most Christians don’t realize that they keep a Jewish High Holy Day! The day known as Pentecost was originally one of the Holy Days given to the Israelites while in the wilderness. It was known as the Feast of Weeks because it occurred about seven weeks after the people of Israel offered to God the first fruits of the spring barley harvest (Deuteronomy 16:9-10).     The word “Pentecost” is derived from the Greek words “pente” and “koste”, which literally mean to “count fifty” as in counting fifty days from that offering of first fruits to the day known as Pentecost (see Leviticus 23:16 where the instructions are to “count fifty days”). Pentecost marked the end of the spring harvest, so the day was essentially...

 
By: Bill Jacobs

    A good friend and I were talking about the need to make our congregations good, safe places for our children. He observed that it is the tendency for many to think about help in a programmatic way: have a need; fill it by creating a program.

    Several interesting thoughts came from that observation. First, we noticed that Jesus did not start a single program. He started a movement, but no programs. Second, we noted that Jesus interacted with people directly to help them. If people were sick he healed them. If they were confused he told them a story or asked them illuminating questions. If children appeared before him, He picked them up and blessed them. In His thirty-three years of human life, he helped people primarily through face-to-face interactions.

By: Lenny Cacchio

Doris Kearnes Goodwin in her book Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream makes the following observation about the Johnson White House:     What is clear is that this continual concentration on conspiracy squandered a large amount of energy. The worse the situation in Vietnam became, the more Johnson intruded his suspicions and fears unto every aspect of his daily work. Conversations with Cabinet members would begin with the question, “why aren’t you out there fighting against my enemies? Don’t you realize that if they destroy me, they’ll destroy you as well?” Discussions on legislation would be interrupted by diatribes against “the critics”. Private luncheons and dinners would be dominated by complaints about “traitors....

By: Lenny Cacchio  

No doubt you are the people, and wisdom will die with you! (Job 12:22 NKJV)      Christians have a problem. We know. And we know that we know. And this knowing can get us into trouble. The Apostle Paul said that “knowledge puffs up” (I Cor. 8:1), and certainly those with lots of knowledge can become arrogant about it.     There was once a Pharisee who went into the temple to pray. Jesus tells us that this man gave a very special prayer of thanks. He said, “God, I thank you.” That’s a noble way to start a prayer. But notice what he thanked God for: “ … that I am not like other men.” (Luke 18:11).     Here was a man who on the outside appeared to be everything God expected him to be. He didn’t cheat people. He didn’t sleep...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    I was on the hospital gurney, buck naked except for one of those flimsy hospital gowns. As a nurse was preparing me for my procedures, an elderly woman, bent from age, peaked in the doorway. “I’m The Prayer Lady”, she announced. “I’m here to pray for you.”     I’m all in favor of prayer, but must confess to being a little startled and a lot surprised. Here I was, surrounded by some of the best medical personnel and equipment that science and technology can provide, and an elderly retired lady is allowed to roam the halls and interrupt whatever the science and equipment are doing in order to pray.     I said, “Let’s do it,” and, taking my hand, she prayed a gentle, short prayer that reflected all my anxieties. Moved...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    What the people of Nineveh must have thought when Jonah strolled into the town! After three days and three nights with a fish’s digestive juices working on him, his skin was blanched and bleached, wrinkly and covered with sores. Seaweed twined around him a time or three, and clothes were likely ragged and torn if he had any at all.     Imagine if a prophet in such a condition walked into your town and proceeded to pronounce the judgement of God on you. I would wager you would write off the old boy as some kind of religious crank. Who wouldn’t?     Well, the people of Nineveh wouldn’t. They listened to this strange looking prophet and his message because God in his wisdom knows how to reach people. The people of...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    On September 28 most Jews and a small but growing number of Christians will be keeping one of the Holy Days mentioned in Leviticus 23 known as the Day of Atonement, or in Hebrew, Yom Kippur. The day is unlike any of the other High Days because, rather than being a feast day, it is instead a fast day, where the people of God are instructed to “afflict” their souls before God.

    Christians who keep this day focus on the atonement the Messiah makes for our sins. Those of the Jewish faith also view it as a day of atonement for sins, and in addition they view it as a day of judgement. But sometimes missed is a nuance revealed throughout the Biblical descriptions of this day that lead me to describe this year’s observance...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    America is a strange mix of Jerusalem and Babylon. So states the late Richard John Neuhaus in his book American Babylon: Notes for a Christian Exile. While acknowledging the religiously aware nature of the nation’s founding and of its citizens, he reminds us that “America is Babylon not by comparison with other societies but by comparison with the radically new order sought by all who know love’s grief in refusing to settle for a community of less than truth and justice compromised.”     This, our union, is less perfect than the more perfect one that the Constitution envisions, and hence the people of God are in a foreign land. But if exiles we are, then what is our role as the people of God in a foreign land? ...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

    Life comes at us. We have jobs to work, kids to chauffer, lawns to mow, meetings to attend, laundry to do, meals to prepare, crises to handle, appointments to keep, and obligations to fulfill. If your life looks like mine, you’ll have lots of Have To’s and not enough Get To’s.     It’s unhealthy having too many Have To’s, but the demands of daily living can often leave us feeling guilty about leaving some of those duties undone and escaping to a personal refuge for a short spell.     But taking a break even when the workload is full of Have To’s is in tune with what Jesus did. We see a number of instances where Jesus boards a boat and tries to sail to the other side of the lake to escape the crowds for a spell. Other...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Do you remember what it was like when you first realized you were in love? Do you remember what it was like to walk hand in hand on a cool spring evening sharing your hopes and dreams, looking forward to the future with excitement and perhaps a bit of trepidation?     But the years go by and the monotony of daily living often dulls that first excitement. The flush of first love gets buried in the world of earning a living and building a life. The petty annoyances of life can steal our joy, and it’s hard to get it back.     Our lives as Christians can be that way too. I get reminded of this every time I meet people who are new to the faith. So often they virtually bubble over with joy and with eagerness. The word of God is...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    One time Jesus told a strange parable.  It’s often referred to as the Parable of the Unjust Steward.   The parable is about a fellow who is about to lose his job because of a bit of chicanery.  He learns of his imminent termination, but before the pink slip arrives he goes to his boss’s customers and renegotiates the terms of their contracts in a way immensely favorable to the customers and much to the detriment of his boss.   Of all things, instead of condemning the unjust steward, the owner of the business commends him for his shrewdness!  With other people’s money this character was buying himself some favors that he could cash in at a later time.  

    Reasonable people wonder how Jesus could use the metaphor of a...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    A little game of Jeopardy here.  The answer is …. “No.”  The question?  “If Jesus were alive today, would he be a Republican or a Democrat?” In Jesus’ world he could have joined any number of movements or parties.  He even had the opportunity to be the world’s leading political figure (Matthew 4:8-11) that could have brought in, albeit temporarily, a modicum of order and peace. Had he chosen, he could have been a Pharisee.  These theological conservatives were the prominent sect that by and large controlled the synagogues.  They were avid advocates of the law.  They were teachers, scholars, and scribes, believed in the resurrection, and accepted the Scriptures as God’s revelation to his people.  They were more interested in theology...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

  With the prevailing news winds warning us about becoming sniffle factories for the swine flu virus, a recent Breakpoint commentary by Chuck Colson is the perfect antidote. Among the many telling excerpts is this one.  “The reporting and the rhetoric is part of what British sociologist Frank Furedi calls the ‘dramatization of disease.’ The media and public officials ‘sound as if they are rehearsing their roles for a disaster movie’—a movie through which we express ‘our anxieties about everyday life.’”

    Colson continues, “Furedi is onto something: The coverage of this outbreak has more to do with the culture than with science. Stories like this one frighten us because they undermine our confidence in our supposed ability...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    If Jesus held a press conference, what question would you ask him?  The disciples asked him lots of questions you and I might ask.  When will be the time of your coming?  Why do you speak in parables?  Who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?   The Pharisees also took the opportunity to ask him questions, but the questions they asked tell us more about the Pharisees than Jesus.  Here’s a curious question they asked in Matthew 19. Tell us, they asked.  When is it permissible for us to divorce our wives?  Moses commanded us to write a bill of divorce if our wives displease us.  What do you say?  

    Considerable debate surrounded that question among the Pharisees.  One school, the school of Hillel, based upon a generous...

By: Ernie Klassek

    NO, DO NOT BE SURPRISED—the time is coming when all those who are dead and buried will hear His voice and out they will come— those who have done right will rise again to life, but those who have done wrong will rise to face judgment!

    That is how J. B. Phillips rendered some words of Jesus in St. John’s Gospel.1

    St. John described a similar scenario of people coming back to life in another book: "Then the sea gave up its dead. Death and the world of the dead also gave up the dead they held. And all were judged according to what they had done." 2

    All. When we read that word we think of every human being—past, present, and future—our ancestors, people here and now, and those yet to come.

...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    The Passover is a great celebration of freedom.  To the Jewish mind, it represents both the birth of a nation and the coming out of the physical bondage of slavery.   To the Christian mind, Christ our Passover became the Lamb without blemish who died and delivered us from the bondage of sin.  Jesus told us that whoever commits sin is a slave of sin (John 8:34), and Peter tells us that we will be brought into bondage by whatever overcomes us.

    So to both the Jew and the Christian, Passover is about freedom. When the slaves of the Old South were introduced to the Gospel, the idea of freedom from slavery fired their imaginations, and they sang the words of that wonderful old spiritual “Tell ol’ Pharaoh, let my people...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    When John F. Kennedy entered the White House, he set upon a course of bringing the best and the brightest into his administration.  We can debate whether or not he succeeded, but we certainly should not begrudge him the attempt.  With the system we have, a President and indeed the federal government as a whole have the obligation to find the best people they can.  So if you walk around Washington, DC today, you will find a lot of bright, capable people populating the place.

    But keep in mind that if these people populate Washington, it means that they are no longer in your community, and are perhaps thereby (as a wit once remarked) raising the average IQ of both places.

And that’s one of the drawbacks of having...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    "Common Sense" was Thomas Paine’s pamphlet from Revolutionary days written with the intent of convincing reluctant colonists that rebellion against the King was not only permissible, it was also a duty.  Paine’s frequent reference to Scripture is remarkable, especially because, as a Deist, he rejected the inspiration of Scripture as the Word of God.  That’s a lesson about propagandists:  they can be fundamentally dishonest people who will say whatever it takes to get the rest of us to agree with them.       Having said that, propagandists can serve an interesting function for the historian.  Propaganda has a better chance of achieving its desired impact if it repeats back to people what they are already thinking, even though...

By: Linda G. Gallia

    For most people, the idea of burying someone who is wounded, but still alive, would be repulsive. However, it is a representation of who some people believe should be cared for and tended to and who they are willing to help through tough times. The origin of the metaphor is unclear but there are documented cases where literal burying of wounded people has occurred. Maoists in Nepal have been known to practice the burying of wounded people while still alive. We should certainly take to heart the parallel in how we treat others who are hurting. It could be physical, emotional, financial, or whatever.

    Jesus was often angry with the religious people around him for their superior attitude and for not having compassion...

By: Linda G. Gallia

    Independence, for many people, is the often the finish line in the race of life. Life does not end with independence. Independence is merely the most basic level to becoming a truly happy and fulfilled human being and child of God.

    In recent years, many of the churches I am familiar with have developed a degree of "independence" from paradigms and ideologies they have rejected as ungodly. It is a wonderful step in the right direction. The only problem is, it cannot be allowed to end there. There is another finish line. Independence is only the halfway point in the real journey.

    I think most Christians understand that relationships are the most important things in life. This materialistic world and self-centered...

By: Linda G. Gallia

    I received a prayer message from a friend the other day. It was one of those sweet emails meant to give encouragement and make people feel good. It said: "GOD OUR FATHER, WALK THROUGH MY HOUSE AND TAKE AWAY ALL MY WORRIES AND ILLNESSES; AND PLEASE WATCH OVER AND HEAL MY FAMILY. IN JESUS’ NAME. AMEN. This prayer is so powerful. Pass this prayer to 12 people including me."

    I sat for a few moments, gathering my thoughts about why this particular little prayer disturbed me. My concern is that prayers such as these might cause us to believe things about God that could actually hurt us. When people ask God to take away all their worries, illnesses, and trials, and it doesn’t happen, they often lose faith in God. I realized...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Back in the great Bear Market of 2000 – 2002, the most important part of my employment was investing Other People’s Money (OPM).  My clients all had nest eggs that I had responsibility for.

    As is true with most investment companies, we had (in my view) the correct approach of not only diversifying broadly, but also allocating the assets to different classes of investments in order to reduce risk.

    Still, we were in the midst of a horrifying market sell-off that began in March 2000 and ratcheted downward with little reprieve until March 2003.  I felt like a complete fool watching all of this take place and knowing that I had to stay with the discipline of our strategy with OPM.

    But not all the money...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Recently I attended a series of seminars on team building.  One of the lessons was borrowed from Patrick Lencioni’s book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable.  Here are the five dysfunctions along with a short explanation.

1.      Absence of Trust.  An unwillingness to be vulnerable within the group or ask for help when needed.  Not open about mistakes and weaknesses.

2.      Fear of Conflict.  Incapable of engaging in unfiltered and passionate debate of ideas.

3.      Lack of Commitment.  Team members do not buy in or commit to decisions.  They may feign agreement in meetings.

4.      Avoidance of Accountability.  Hesitation to call peers on actions and behaviors that may be counterproductive...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Today a new issue of my trade magazine came in, and I came across a curious item regarding this year’s tax rebate "stimulus" package: 

    "In fact the legacy of the fiscal stimulus was how consumers responded – by lifting their savings rates to a six-year high of 2.6% from 0.3% rather than embarking on a new buying spree … That was the third-sharpest increase in the savings rate in the past 55 years and a vivid sign that frugality is now replacing frivolity."

    Some reports indicate that only 10% - 20% of those government stimulus checks were actually spent.  The bulk of the money went into savings or debt reduction.

    To you and me that might sound like a great thing, but not according to Michael...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    In times of crisis, American political leaders from time to time have called for a day of prayer, and sometimes even a day of fasting and prayer.  The Pilgrims did it.  The Puritans did it.  In 1746 the settlements in New England did it when the French fleet threatened them.  Shortly thereafter a storm destroyed the fleet.  

    In Revolutionary times, Civil War times, and even as recently as 2003, political leaders called for such observances.  Various religious groups periodically call their congregations to days of prayer, and there is even a National Day of Prayer every May that Congress authorized in the 1950s.  

    God gave the nation of Israel a national day of prayer and fasting.  It is commonly known...

By: Lenny Cacchio

Last week I shared the first twenty of the forty lessons I learned over my forty summers in the Word.  This week, the final twenty.

21.  We all have our own section of the wall to mend. 22.  If you ask God for patience, he’ll give you the opportunity to be patient. 23.  It’s what you learn after you know it all that really counts. 24.  Before getting to the Promised Land, we must first pass through the wilderness. 25.  Don’t despise the day of small things.  The smallest match can light a mighty fire. 26.  Accept wisdom even if it comes from an unexpected source.  God once spoke through Balaam’s ass. 27.  If you find the perfect church, don’t join it because then it won’t be perfect anymore....

By: Lenny Cacchio

    This summer marked the fortieth summer since my introduction to the Bible.  It has been quite an intellectual journey filled with faith and doubt, hope and disappointment.  I’m still here and still in the Word, and the next couple of weeks I am going to share with you forty lessons I learned traversing those forty summers.  This week I’ll share the first twenty.

If there is a God, I want to know what he has to say.  If there is no God, then nothing anyone says or does will matter. What the Bible says and what people say it says are two different things.  Read it for yourself and learn the difference. Jesus is Lord of all.  Because he is Lord of all, his teachings should be at the center of all I think, say,...

By: Lenny Cacchio

Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed on him? - John 7:48

Are you going to believe me or your own eyes? - Groucho Marx 

    I hate to admit this, but after a major political event I am more fascinated by the journalistic commentary that follows it than the event itself.  That might be because so many political events and speeches are yawners reminiscent of college Speech 101.

    But I’m also interested in other people’s take on what happened, even though it might remind me of Groucho Marx’s line at the head of this column:  "Are you going to believe me or your own eyes?"

    Jesus had the same type of press.  He healed the sick, raised the dead, fed the multitudes, and taught a new...

By: Jim O'Brien  

    "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." When Abraham Lincoln stood on a battlefield in Pennsylvania uttering these words he defined why more blood had been spilt in this war than any in American history. This nation was built on the concept that "all men are created equal."

    This idea of universal equality has a religious foundation. The Declaration of Independence states, "they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. . ." These rights transcend national borders. They are rooted in natural law that declares "these truths are self-evident." That is, it is obvious...

By: Lenny Cacchio

The house of representatives...can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as the great mass of society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interest, and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny. James Madison, Federalist No. 57, February 19, 1788

    We can presume that Madison’s concept as expressed in Federalist No. 57 was a view that most of the Founding Fathers espoused.  But none of them invented this noble idea.  Its roots are embedded in...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36).  Of course it isn’t.  If it were, we wouldn’t have among other things a protracted and painful presidential election campaign that further exposes the fault lines in our national landscape.

    No candidate is the perfect combination of the patience of Job, the wisdom of Solomon, and the fighting spirit of David.  Nor should we expect such.  The best we can hope for is a government that provides us with security, some basic services, and fair adjudication of laws while not infringing upon our freedom to pursue our God-given purpose and talents.

    Sadly, not everyone sees it that way.  Some theories of government emphasize redistribution of wealth.  Some...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    I have been a financial planner for a long time, working with affluent and high net worth people.  When I first got into the business, I was surprised to learn that "high income" does not necessarily translate into "high net worth".  One of the first clients I worked with was making more than ten times what I was making, the equivalent of over half million dollars per year in 2008 dollars.  Yet in doing his financial plan I discovered that I had more money in the bank, and not to mention less debt, than he did!

    I pondered how this could be.  Many reasons can account for a sick financial statement, but certainly one reason is inability to know the difference between needs and wants. 

    A few months ago I stood...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

    "Don’t sell your birthright for a bowl of red soup."  That little allegory might be hard to understand, but it should be a part of our cultural literacy.  It’s based on a story in the book of Genesis, where twin brothers became rivals and vied for supremacy.  In ancient times, the older brother was entitled to the family birthright, but in this story the younger brother through savvy and deceit talked the older one in a moment of hunger to give up his birthright for one bowl of red soup.

    Jacob and Esau were the two brothers’ names, and the account is in Genesis 25:29-34, and it reads like this:

    Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished.  He said to Jacob, "Quick,...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    "How do I answer the guy who tells me the law is done away?"  The question came up in our new small group Bible Study.  "He says Galatians 3 says that Jesus has saved us from the curse of the law."

    While the group began to decipher the intricacies of Galatians 3, I reached over, grabbed the inquisitor’s drink, and put it over on my side of the table.  The I took his notebook and put it by my things as if I was going to take it home with me.  His curious glances led me to take his pen, and then as I reached for his wide margin New King James Bible, I commented that really wanted to have it.

    His puzzled and almost aggravated expression broke into a wide grin.  He got the point:  if the law is done away, then...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

    I used to like The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.  What was not to like?  They were a two-parent family with two well-behaved sons.   Every week for fourteen years they stumbled through the foibles of daily living, but as a family they managed in a mere thirty minutes minus commercial breaks to resolve every conflict that beset America’s favorite family.

    This, of course, was before the Nelsons became the emblem of what some seem to think was the silly season of American Culture.  Ozzie in his necktie and Harriet in her dress, David and Ricky minding their manners, always bright and polite – this was surely a phony portrayal of American family life that never was and never could be.

    Thus the series has...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    In his book Deliver Us from Evil, Dr. Tom Dooley relates a punishment the Viet Minh inflicted upon their countrymen for listening to evil words.  The Viet Minh were the predecessors to the Communist Viet Cong of the Vietnam War.

    Says Dr. Dooley of some of their victims, "Each of them had a big scar where an ear should have been.  I remembered that in the Roman Catholic province of Bao Lac, near the frontier of China, the Communist Viet Minh often would tear an ear partially off with a pincer-like pair of pliers and leave the ear dangling.  That was the penalty for the crime of listening to the evil words.  The evil words were the words of the Lord’s Prayer."

    At my first reading of this account, I was shocked...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Getting frustrated with things in general is a normal response to much of what we see in this old world.  I’m no exception, and as I told someone not long ago, "You and I should run for Congress, and we’ll solve everything once we get there."

    That, of course, is not true.  First, we could never be elected in today’s political environment, and secondly, we must not be naïve about the power of the establishment.  I’m reminded about a not-so-obscure prophecy in the Book of Revelation the interpretation of which has been horribly skewed.  Brace yourself, as I am about to give you a different understanding of this passage:

    "Then the angel carried me away by the Spirit to the desert.  There I saw a woman sitting...

By: Lenny Cacchio

The book Morning Coffee Companion, a compilation of Sabbath Morning Companion essays, is now available through our publisher and Amazon.com. You may also order a copy through your local bookstore.  Enjoy a daily devotional alongside your favorite cup of joe.

Link:  Morning Coffee Companion

    What is this thing called charisma? Why do people follow a charismatic leader? The word charisma is a Greek word often translated in the New Testament as "gift". More precisely, it can refer to a divine endowment or miraculous faculty. King David undoubtedly had some divine endowments relative to leadership. Strong men naturally followed him, even risking their lives...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    A few weeks ago in this column I wrote about Judas Iscariot.  I called him an enigma.  How could anyone, having seen the miracles of Jesus and hearing his words, betray the Son of God to the children of men?

    Shortly after that column made the rounds, Barbara, a friend from college days, sent me a note that opened some insights that reveal not only an insight into his motives, but also a warning to those of us who claim to be followers of Jesus today.  Wrote Barb:

    I don’t find it so unfathomable that he was caught up by his political goal to help restore Israel to its former glory.  He was trying to coerce Jesus to take over to use His powers, if pushed far enough by the Romans.  He never expected Him...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Ideas have consequences, and that’s why doctrine is central to Christianity.  It’s true that Christianity is about behavior and relationships, and those are important things, but doctrine has a special place because it’s the lens through which we define how we act and how we relate

    A great example might be how you view the path to salvation.  If you believe there are many paths to salvation, your approach to evangelizing the Christian message will be radically different than one who believes that Jesus is the only way.

    If you believe salvation comes from keeping a set of rules and rituals, you will make different choices in life than someone who believes that salvation comes from God’s mercy. 

   ...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Lost!  It’s an ongoing saga on network television.  It’s also considered a theological term.  Paul used it to describe those who couldn’t understand the gospel message (II Corinthians 4:3).  Jesus used it to describe the people of Israel (Matthew 10:6, 15:24).  He talked about lost sheep (Luke 15:4-7), and the lost coin (15:8-10). 

    Nobody wants to be lost.  Once as a small boy I strayed from my parents in a five and dime store.  I wasn’t being rebellious.  I just wandered off without any thought, and when I looked up and Mom wasn’t there, my stomach knotted up as I frantically searched for the comfort of home.  I was lost, but I wasn’t evil.  

    That’s the way it is with an awful lot of lost sheep, and that’s...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    The Middle East by reason of climate and culture is a dusty place. In Jesus’ day there was little in the way of paved roads, and consequently the feet of the sandal-wearing populous would pick up the common grime of the roads as they walked through life. 

    In addition to the dust that one would normally encounter walking, other sources of filth of a less savory kind were also in the streets of that day’s Jerusalem .  Livestock was abundant, given the contemporary need for transportation, economic necessity, and sacrifice.  Not only would the streets of Jerusalem be covered in dust and mud, Jerusalem would be awash in a mixture of dung and urine.  In a culture where the common footwear was the sandal, imagine how one’s...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    "Judge not, that ye be not judged" seems to be scripture of the age, even finding itself on the lips of a presidential candidate or two.  We need to be tolerant others, we’re lectured, otherwise we are bigots, and that’s something no caring society can tolerate.

    Judging has earned itself a bad name.

    I’m all for tolerance, and I’m all for refraining from condemning others.  The problem is in the devil’s trick of redefining terms.  Tolerance might imply respect, fairness, and objectivity, but it does not require agreement.  While I might be tolerant of those with different opinions and even lifestyles, I feel no moral need to agree when my investigation and analysis of the evidence informs that such positions...

By: Lenny Cacchio

"Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus." (John 11:5)

    Jesus had a special relationship with family from Bethany.  We see him teaching in their home.  He dined with them. At Lazarus death he traveled from a long way off to be with the sisters in their grief and to call Lazarus from his tomb.

    We see these sisters and brother only three times in Scripture, and each time the family appears, we notice something unique about Mary.  Every time we see Mary of Bethany, she is at Jesus feet.

In Luke 10 she sits at his feet learning the ways of God.

In John 11 she falls at his feet in honor and worship.

And in John 12 Mary is anointing his feet in an act of service.

To learn,...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    The sergeant’s next assignment would prove to be the most challenging.  His assignment was to lead a battle-hardened platoon with a reputation for shooting its own officers in the back.  That tradition he was intent on breaking, for non-coms were not exempt from such treatment.

    He was a working man from the mountains, and though he might have lacked a formal education in leadership skills, his style was one borne of necessity and experience.  He knew what would work to gain the respect of his men.

    So when it came time to cross the stream, he was the first one in the water.  If they had to cross an open field, he was the point man.  He took his turn at guard duty, and whenever there was a nasty bit of work...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Brace yourself.  Someday you’ll be in the Kingdom of God, and you’ll be shocked who you’ll see there.  Maybe it will be a preacher who kicked you out of his church and slandered you in front of the congregation.

    Maybe it will be a boss who prodded and drove you mercilessly in the name of greater profits and efficiency.

    Maybe it will be the petty thief who ran off with your purse and peace of mind, but who repented in prison and found God behind bars.

    Or maybe it will be someone you slandered or gossiped about, or deceived in a business deal.  Maybe it will be a case where you are the wrong-er rather than the wrong-ee.

    We know that these scenarios are real ones; there will be people...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

    In this column some time ago I quoted one of the great political minds of the 20th Century and what he had to say about political campaigns and propaganda.  The man was a genius for his time, understanding how to manipulate crowds and win support without revealing one’s true agenda.  I call him a genius – and he was – but  in many ways he was an evil genius, for he used his understanding of human nature to manipulate the electorate and mold the culture in his own image.

    In this election cycle it would do us well to revisit the man’s writings in which he revealed early in his political career how he would gain support for his movement.  He put it this way:  

    "The receptive powers of the masses are very...

By: Lenny Cacchio

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. – Lord Acton

    It is a challenging task to remain humble when people tell you how great you are. Look at the leaders of Israel, many of whom began as humble servants, but who later battled and sometimes lost the war with their egos.

    Moses, who was called the meekest man on earth, one time lost his patience and struck a rock for water, shouting, "Must we fetch water from a rock for you?" In thus doing, he claimed the credit for himself, and not for God.

    King Saul, the reluctant first king of Israel, came to crave his position and power so much that he ceased to obey God and his prophet, seeking his own ways.

    King David, called...

By: Lenny Cacchio

It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes.  (Psalm 118:9)

    In the first volume of his World War II memoirs, Winston Churchill reports a remarkable admission by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, who served in that office from 1935 – 1937.  When challenged for not taking rearmament of Britain seriously in the face of growing threats from the Continent, he replied in Parliament with a remarkable admission of his true motives:

    I put before the whole House my own views with an appalling frankness. … You will remember that at that time [the time of the election] there was probably a stronger pacifist feeling running through this country than at any time since the war.  You will remember...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    In a recent article about George Schultz National Review’s  Jay Nordingler describes a snippet of his interview with this former Secretary of State:

    "At Schultz’s side is an illuminated globe, and this prompts me to ask him about a test he would give to new U.S. Ambassadors.  ‘They’d been through all kinds of exams and so on – confirmation – and I’d say to them, "Well, there’s just one more test you have to pass. … You have to walk over to that globe and demonstrate to me that you can identify your country."  And, inevitably, they would point to the country to which they had been assigned’

    "The correct answer of, of course, was the United States – that was their country.  And Schultz’s moral was, ‘Never...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    The scriptures say what they say, and sometimes it’s hard to understand why.  There was a time in Egypt when a couple of Israelite women told very deliberate lies and were honored for it.   They were so honored for this that their names, Shiphrah and Puah, have been preserved for every generation since.

    Being hesitant to extol the virtues of taking liberty with the truth, I am a bit uneasy that the scriptures say what they say.  But if there were not a lesson in it for us, they wouldn’t say it that way.

    Shiphrah and Puah were midwives when the people of Israel were slaves in Egypt.  In spite of their position of servitude, the Israelites were a prolific lot and began to outnumber the native Egyptians.  ...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

    The developing story of the 2008 Presidential election should not be as surprising as many are depicting it.  The fact is, the frontrunners in the two parties have made a point of bringing civility into the political process, and if they succeed, it would be a good thing.   Most of us are tired of the 20 of political discourse consisting of charges and innuendo that are better left to the tabloids.

    If the indications from the campaign are to be taken for what they seem to be, the candidates who are faring the best are those who claim to be above the usual political fray.  The electorate seems to be tired of the fighting and yearns for the rhetoric of unity and mutual respect.

    We’re seeing the beginnings...

By: Lenny Cacchio

"It’s a different Greek word," my friend said.  "This is a different word for ‘ministry’ than the one most commonly used."

I looked it up, and he’s right.  The Greek word is leitourgeo, and it means something different than the more common diakonia, which implies service in general.   According to Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, leitourgeo is "a public office which a citizen undertakes to administer at his own expense."

It’s a noble thing to perform acts of service with no motive for financial gain.  The New Testament speaks of such sacrificial service, and more than that, Paul calls himself a bond slave for Christ (Philippians 1:1, Titus 1:1), admitting not only that he serves, but that he also feels bound as a slave to a life...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    One time Jesus told a story about a businessman who gave differing amounts of capital to different people, telling them to do something productive with it and he would settle the books with him when he was back in town.

    When the rendering was made, some of the men did well while others did not.  But the interesting thing about the story is that no one was expected to do more than his allotment of talents allowed.   The guy who started with five and made five was rewarded no differently than the fellow who started with two and from that made only two.

    The businessman didn’t expect the one with two to have the same impact as the fellow with five.  He expected results based on what they had, not what they...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

Last time I listed my top five books for the 21st Century church. The next five round out my "Top Ten" list.

6. Twelve Ordinary Men (John MacArthur).   The Twelve Apostles were ordinary men Jesus selected for a very extraordinary mission.  MacArthur shows how each of these men had his own uniqueness, and each was called because he had a specific ability that God could use.   The book brings to life the lesser-known Apostles and reminds us that God can use the talents and abilities of each of us if we are willing to let him.  With all the talk about evangelism these days, it is comforting to know that not all of us need to be great preachers like Peter to do the work of an evangelist.

7. The Screwtape Letters (CS Lewis). ...

By: Lenny Cacchio

The church is making a big mistake if it ignores its mandate to be salt and light to the world at large.  To be truly successful as the people of God, the church must reach a level of cultural literacy in order to understand and engage the world around it.  I am listing here my list of top ten books that in my opinion should be in every Christian’s tool box.

Democracy in America (Alexis de Tocqueville.)  This 19th Century Frenchman’s insight into the root of American greatness is a reminder that our nation grew because of the greatness of our people and our voluntary associations.   A large overreaching government had nothing to do with it.  That principal applies to the church as well as the nation. People of the...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Don’t believe every scripture you hear, or perhaps better said, don’t believe every scripture you hear as quoted.

    I’m leafing through a book about money written by someone well-known in the evangelical community.  He quotes lots of good scriptures and makes some telling comments (such as the old line about Scriptures talking more about money than about going to heaven when you die), but the book leaves me with the weird sense about his subtext.

    The book is right in saying the things of this world will all perish, and that a U-Haul won’t follow your hearse to the cemetery.  And it says that your true treasure should be in heaven.   That is all good, biblical stuff. 

    But here is his logic:  Since...

By: Linda G. Gallia 

     I have a confession. Someone put up a link to the song “How Deep Is Your Love” by the Bee Gees on an Internet forum that I participate in from time to time. It was just a fun discussion some were having. I was a teenager in the 70s when the Bee Gees were popular and I enjoyed some of their music very much and still do. I clicked on the link so I could hear the song. About half way through the song I started to think about the title of the song and the question it asks. I began to think of it in relation to how deep God’s love is for us. I know the song was not written to invoke these kinds of thoughts but, for some reason, it did for me this time.

    I didn’t understand at first why tears began streaming down my face....

By: Lenny Cacchio

Hold your nose and vote!  I can identify with that sentiment, for I have done it more than I care to remember.  But what are the alternatives?   1.      Don’t vote at all.   2.      Vote for someone who has no chance of winning in order to make a moral statement.   3.      Get involved.  Work on a campaign for someone you can gladly support.   Better, run for office yourself.   I can make an argument for any of those options, but because I have no desire to be active in party politics, nor do I care to forfeit my franchise (and effectively give half a vote to people and causes I reject outright), I go on holding my nose and punching my butterfly ballot for a less than ideal candidate.   I have accepted that this...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Since 1921 our nation has recognized November 11 as a day to honor those who have served in our nation’s armed forces.  Originally designated Armistice Day as a memorial to the end of World War I, Congress renamed it Veteran’s Day in 1954 in to recognize the service of all veterans.

    Thomas Jefferson was right to acknowledge that our rights and freedoms come from God and are a gift of God, but Marine Corps Chaplain Dennis Edward O’Brian made a salient point when he said, "It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press.   It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.  It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.  It is the...

By: Lenny Cacchio

President Harry Truman wished for a one-armed economist because his economic advisors were always saying, "On the other hand …".     Someone once asked economist Milton Friedman, the Nobel Laureate, what the stock market was going to do, and he replied, "It will go up, it will go down, and it will go sideways, but not necessarily in that order."

    Professor Friedman was wise in his retort, for no one really knows what the market is going to do.  On the other hand (beg pardon), it sure would be nice if someone had convictions about something these days.   Too many people are hesitant to take a moral stand on anything for fear of being called intolerant, arrogant, or  a bigot.  Even nominees for the Federal bench are...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Peter was free! The jails doors swung open and he walked right past the guards, out the gates, and to the house of his friends, who had spent the entire night in prayer for this very thing! (Acts 12:1-13) And yet this episode is anything but a shining example of faithful prayer.

    James tells us that the "effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much", and he tells us to pray "nothing wavering", that to waver is to be tossed about the sea, and in such a case we should expect nothing from the Lord (James 5:16, 1:6-7).

    But God in his mercy and love often answers prayers even when we do waver. God sprang Peter from prison by an unassailable miracle in answer to the fervent prayers of the brethren. Even...

By: Lenny Cacchio

Dinesh D’Souza is an author and political pundit whose newest book is entitled What’s So Great About Christianity. Note that the title does not end in a question mark. Noted atheist Christopher Hitchens recently appeared on stage with D’Souza to debate the question of religion. 

I was able to view an eight minute clip, and while I do not know how D’Souza fared in the entire debate, I do claim disappointment in how he dealt with on of Mr. Hitchens’ challenges.

Hitchens claims that the Church aided and abetted the rise of Fascism in the 20th Century. People such as Franco and Mussolini were practicing Catholics and had reached various agreements and accommodations with the Vatican regarding their policies and activities....

By: Lenny Cacchio

"Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him." (Matthew 6:8 NKJV)

I am thankful that God knows what I need even before I ask, but that leads me to wonder:  "If God knows what I need before I ask, then why ask at all?"   God is good.  He’ll give me what I need.  Besides, Paul says that "we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." (Romans 8:26 NKJV)

It’s tempting to think that we might bore God with things he already knows, but we run no risk of doing that.  Even though God knows everything we need, he likes to hear us talk.   In John 17, Jesus prayed the obvious:  The hour has come.  God gave Jesus...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    It saddened me when I saw him.  His once vibrant athletic frame was now a shadow of its former self, racked by the crude chemotherapy of the day.   I remember most how terribly thin and pale he looked, and how much hair he had lost.  But he grinned when he saw me and asked, "Did you play much ball this summer, Leonard?"  "Yep," I said.   "Every chance I got."

    He was Nick Ioveno, my high school baseball coach.  Legend had it that he once played professional baseball and made it all the way to the New York Mets.   In his first game someone hit him a groundball that went right between his legs.  So much for his career in The Show.

    What I knew about him was crude at best: he was the toughest son of a gun I ever...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    "The Ten Commandments don’t have any footnotes," said the pundit, the point being to take them literally if you are going to take them at all.

    I appreciate the sentiment, but I disagree with the premise.  Yes, those commandments mean what they say.  "Thou shalt not steal" is a good command to live by, but what if you and your children are starving and you have a chance to slip off with an apple from the produce the aisle.   Are you committing a crime worthy of jail?  A Biblical footnote, if you will, says, "Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry" (Proverbs 6:30).

    From this one might conclude that extenuating circumstances and the offering of grace can temper the commands...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    "There is nothing new under the sun," wrote Solomon.  That’s what I thought when reading Jim Bishop’s book FDR’s Last Year.   Bishop relates some of the difficulties Franklin Roosevelt had with Congress as his Administration drew to a close.

    According to Bishop, FDR’s enemies painted him as a "rich man who had betrayed his own class with crushing taxes; a liar who had promised the mothers of America when he asked for a third term: ‘I hate war!   I promise you, your sons will not fight on foreign soil.’  GOP leaders never tired of reminding the people that Mr. Roosevelt was spending $312 million every day on the war and that it was ‘his war – he enticed the Japanese to attack.’   Mr. Roosevelt had begun to prepare the...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    You’ll probably recognize the title of this essay as a quotation from the Liberty Bell.  Proclaim liberty throughout the land!  That quotes part of a verse from the book of Leviticus and can be found in chapter 25. "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof" is in part from verse 10 of that chapter, and it refers to the Jubilee year, which came around every 50 years.

    The Jubilee is based on the agrarian notion that wealth is in the land.  Families had inheritance in the land, but often because of poor management or bad fortune, the family would lose the land and hence its means of financial freedom.   In an agrarian society, to lose the land meant to lose your freedom, for you would...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    The last time I checked, God’s scorecard doesn’t look too good.  Of the six billion people on the earth today, 4 billion of them adhere to a set of beliefs other than what is broadly termed Christianity (source: http://www.adherents.com/). Even if we assume for a moment that all those who claim the label of "Christian" really are Christians in deed as well as name, it means God isn’t doing very well in the battle for souls.

    Add to this the historical reality that the explosion in the world’s Christian population is a comparatively recent phenomenon (the past 500 years), and we must wonder why God seems impotent, if it so be that Christianity’s traditional truth claims are...

By: Lenny Cacchio

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. -- Matthew 11:29 NIV

    I’m a boy from the city, so for many years I misunderstood these words of Jesus.  I once thought that Jesus was painting a picture of me with my neck in the yoke with Jesus walking behind me, reins and maybe whip in hand, "encouraging" me onward.  

    That’s quite a picture of Jesus and how he supposedly operates.  I never focused on the implicit bad theology of me doing the heavy work and Jesus compelling me forward like a slave master in my life of toil and travail.

    One afternoon I was strolling around the square in the city of Liberty, Missouri.  Many of the...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Baseball beats loudly in the hearts of millions in spite of the inroads of football and NASCAR, in spite of fans frustrated by spoiled athletes and too many sub-par teams.  During this summer of 2007 I was reminded of the soul of the game and why it connects with the American people in a special way.

    I speak of the 2007 National Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremony and specifically about Cal Ripken, Jr.'s remarks to the assembled tens of thousands on the grounds and multitudes more via ESPN Classic.   People can sense a class act, and they sensed it throughout Ripken’s career.  He only confirmed it on the dais in Cooperstown.

    Said Ripken,

"When I realized that I could use baseball to help make...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Winston Churchill once said, "Writing a book is an adventure.  To begin with it is a toy and an amusement.  Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant.   The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the master, and fling him about to the public."  (Quoted in Winston Churchill: His Wit and Wisdom , Hyperion Books, p. 135)

    Over the several years that I have written this column, I have effectively written the equivalent of a book or two, and I can attest that it does become your master and tyrant after a while.

    The task of wowing one’s audience with brilliance week after week is daunting and not always successful, but it is fortunate...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    My daughter recently sent me on a rare but rewarding foray into the world of fiction.  The book is The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini.   The Hosseini family was granted political asylum in the United States in 1980 after fleeing their native Afghanistan.  Dr. Hosseini’s novel betrays an evident love of his native land, and while the book is fiction, it certainly reflects something of what Hosseini recalls about being a boy in Afghanistan during the upheavals of his youth.

    This is a book about Afghanistan, both warts and diamonds, as much as it is about a young man coming of age.  If you want some insight into Afghanistan and the Afghani way of thinking (and you should), then read this book.   Insights abound, and...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    In 1978 a ragtag team organized themselves into a software company and asked investors to take a chance.  A picture of this geek squad from the past inspires no confidence.  They look like a gang of long-haired nerds, but I sure wish I had invested a little.  A few bucks invested in Microsoft in 1978 would be worth millions today.

...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    One hundred years ago my Grandfather Cacchio stepped off a boat at Ellis Island and made the trek to the village of Reynoldsville, Pennsylvania.  Thus began the history of an American family.

    Forty years and eight children later he learned how to sign his name (he couldn’t read and his name were the only words he ever learned to pen), and it was only then that he could become a citizen.

    He was a part of the great immigration of 1880 – 1920, but unlike today the United States of America had a confidence about its core.  People really believed that this was a good and great country, and that people who moved here should adopt its language and its core values.

    The next generation, the generation...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    It’s an odd experience to see ourselves as others see us.  When someone new walks into your church, what do they see?  Do they see you parading your neuroses?   Do they see a social club with good music and fellowship, but a lack of the preaching of the word?  Do they see a coffee klatch or a healthy, functioning church?

    The Apostle Paul addressed the Corinthian church with such a concern.  That church must have been a raucous place, for Paul warned them that people coming in off the street would see chaos, and perhaps rightly conclude that the church was out of its mind, but "if you prophesy, preaching God’s Word, [even though such preaching is mostly for believers] and an unsaved person or a new Christian comes in...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

    No, I don’t accept it all on faith.  The God of the Bible does not expect you to chuck your reasoning powers at the sanctuary door.  Rather, we read of Paul’s admonition to the Thessalonians to "test all things; hold fast what is good" (I Thessalonians 5:21 NKJV), or as the old King James has it, "Prove all things."

    "Prove" can mean lots of different things.  Writers such as Lee Strobel offer proof of God through rules of evidence which he presents admirably in his "Case For" books – The Case of Christ, The Case for Faith, and The Case for a Creator.

    Geniuses such as Isaac Newton saw the laws of physics as proof of an ordered universe and thus the need for a supreme lawgiver.

    Apologists such...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    When God first rained manna from heaven onto the children of Israel, he told them they had to eat it all in one day.  That is a curious thing to tell someone, akin to telling them not to plan ahead, and to be honest I find it a bit troublesome.

    Everything in my training and everything in my bones tells me to take charge of my own future.  My generation and those behind us know from the simple demographics of the matter that we will not get our shot at the passel of government safety nets that graced the generations before us.  We must save and invest for our own well-being.  Eat your manna today and let tomorrow take care of itself?  I don’t think so.

I can even find scriptural support my position.

“A...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

    Our God is a patient sort, and that goes for our prayer lives too. As Paul once wrote,

    “The Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” (Rom 8:26-27 NKJV) That’s almost like saying that God sees our hearts even if our tongues don’t say it right.

    But God is patient even if our hearts aren’t quite where they ought to be. Anciently there was a man who was known as Deceitful. This was not just a nickname, and he wasn’t one of the Seven Dwarfs. “Deceitful” is what “Jacob” means in Hebrew. Jeremiah so uses that word in chapter 17 of his book: “The heart is deceitful above...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    The current word of insult these days is “Fundamentalism”.  Fundamentalists are accused of acts of intolerance, abandoning science, keeping their women barefoot and pregnant, and attempting to supplant the US Constitution with a “theocracy”. 

    Editorials and commentators here and there draw a connection between “Fundamentalist Christians” and “Fundamentalist Islam” with the pretext that both promote terrorism and therefore both bear a moral equivalency.

    I am a Christian, and I take that calling seriously.  I have studied Christianity from every angle, reading agnostics, atheists, apologists, and historians.  I have talked with people from scores of denominational backgrounds and from other nations and cultures. ...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    I have been called some unsavory things in my life, but nothing as overt as this.  In a recent on-line essay (which we will henceforth call the White Paper) I was accused of:

1.      Being an extremist Christian fascist

2.      A huge threat

3.      A member of the Christian Mafia

4.      A threat to freedom and democracy

5.      Desirous of abolishing Constitutional law

6.      Wanting to outlaw all faiths other than Christianity

    And that was just in the first few paragraphs!   I admit the author of the White Paper wasn’t speaking of me in particular, but only generally about those of us who might be considered “Conservative Christians.”  The diatribe is one of many making...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Warning!  This week’s essay could be rightly construed as bad theology.  God does NOT send bad weather for the express purpose of teaching me a lesson.  As I write this, I am hunkered down in the Buffalo-Niagara Falls International Airport, sidelined by an April Nor’Easter that is delaying the onset of spring.  It has shut down airports, cancelled flights from Maine to South Carolina, and has stranded thousands of people like me.  But my slight inconvenience pales against the destruction to life and property that the storm has wrought against the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic coasts.

    Nevertheless, such events are sometimes schoolteachers of life lessons.  I have been frustrated with unavoidable travel delays and will...

By: Ron Saladin

    I was on my way home from work when I got the page—911. I hurriedly dialed home to hear that five year-old Christopher had a bad puncture wound under his left jaw. He had catapulted off his bicycle into the edge of a log. Lots of blood. I hurriedly asked if he was breathing okay; the answer was yes. I was 30 minutes away.

    When I arrived, I looked at the wound. It was bleeding more from the inside than the outside. My wife, Cynthia, had rolled up a cloth and put it into Christopher’s mouth to absorb some of the seeping blood. The wound looked odd—smooth tissue, almost like the inside tissue of a cheek. We were off to the emergency room at St. John’s in Washington, MO.

    The doctor suspected a broken jaw, and...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Odd as this will sound,  what I am about to tell you is true.  I once fell asleep during my own sermon!  It might be hard to believe (unless you have heard me speak), but this really happened.  Read on, lest you think I am spinning you.

    No one knew that I had fallen asleep at such a time until I told people about it, and then it seemed totally in character.  While speaking, I noticed that the audience was generally losing interest in my remarks, and several had eyelids that seemed unusually heavy.  Some time before our church had begun recording sermons, giving the speaker a copy for purposes of self-evaluation.  I listened to myself a few days later, and ten minutes into it I discovered that my sermon was a great...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    A marketing genius told me about one of the more amusing marketing failures in the history of corporate America.  The corporation in question decided to market its product in Africa.  The target market in this story was an illiterate one, and the population identified the contents of the package by the picture on the label.  If the label had a picture of a tomato, the can was a can of tomatoes.  If the label had a picture of apples, then the jar was a jar of apples.

    So when Gerber went to Africa and put a picture of a baby on the label, you can understand why they sold few jars of baby food.

    One American auto company had trouble breaking into the Japanese market because, among other reasons, in Japan they...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Let’s admit that politicians flip flop, and they often do it because of the expediency of the moment.  But these people are people just like we are and therefore subject to human weaknesses.  We can say we expect better from our duly elected officials, but we have what we have and often we have the leadership we deserve.

    At the same time, what looks like a flip flop might not be a flip flop.  Sir Winston Churchill, who many would say was more statesman than politician, began his political career as a Tory, switched to the Liberal Party, then between the two world wars flip flopped back to the Tories.

    Ronald Reagan as governor of California signed pro-choice legislation into law, but after consideration became...

By: Terri-Leigh Reilly

         The pair of them strolled, hand in hand, along the beach. The daughter looked up thoughtfully, opened her mouth as if to speak, and closed  it again in frustration. She watched the waves, then the seagulls, and  finally looked up to the sky, with that thoughtful look still shining in her eyes. Her father smiled, he could feel a question approaching.          "Daddy?" she said, twisting her hair around her finger.          "Yes, my darling," he replied.          She looked up at him again, "Will you always love me?"          He was quiet for a while. The instant reply that any other loving  father would have given to their daughter, would have been, yes, darling, I  will always love you. It was on the...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Puritanism, according to H.L. Mencken is “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.”  The old boy had a point, I’m afraid, and lately we seem to have entered the era of the New Puritans, though not the religious kind.

    In every newspaper I read I find dire warnings about everything I enjoy in life, and I have concluded that if it appeals to me, it can’t be good for me.  One day I read that coffee is filled with antioxidants, and the next that coffee can kill you.

    A juicy filet will give me heart disease, but tofu and bean sprouts are proper penance paid to the goddess of the earth.

    Comfortable cars are destroying the planet, and dirty, dingy buses are the recommended mode of transportation...

By: Gerald Saul

    An article recently came across my desk with an eye-catching title—Look Who’s Happily Unmarried by Rory Evans[1]. The opening sentence reads, “Get your grandma her fan and smelling salts: More and more couples are living in sin.”

    The article goes on to state that just over half of the households in America are now led by unmarried people—50.3% to be exact. Also presented is a quote from the executive director of the Alternatives to Marriage Project who says that “these numbers suggest that couples living together can’t be scandalous…It’s hard to scandalize when you’re the majority.”

    Does this mean what I think it means? Are half of America’s couples really in long-term “unmarriage”?...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Several weeks ago in this column I wrote about a number of instances in our national history where duly elected officials called the nation to a day of fasting and prayer.  Upon further research I found a striking pattern that often followed.

    In 1746, the French fleet threatened New England settlements, and the people of New England called for a day of prayer and fasting.  It is true that a storm destroyed the fleet.  But it is also true that within a few years the colonies were engaged in the French and Indian War, which lasted nine years.

    On June 1, 1774, the Virginia House of Burgesses called for a day of prayer and fasting in support of the people of Boston, and again in 1775 the Continental Congress...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Walter Mitty was a fictional James Thurber character whose waking hours were spent in fantasy about himself.  One moment he would imagine himself a war hero, in the next moment a great man about town.  In another moment he would be a world-famous surgeon, in another an inscrutable secret agent.   Through his fantasies he was saved from a life of quiet blandness.

    Ever have a Walter Mitty moment?  Peter sure did.  “Let’s go to Jerusalem and die with him.”  “Far be it from you, Lord, that such things would happen to you.  We won’t let it! We have two swords here!”  “Sure, I’ll walk on water.”  But for Peter, unlike Walter Mitty, reality trumped fantasy, for he fled at the first sign of danger and lost faith when faced...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    I am a proponent of immigration, but only of the kind that follows the rules.  I’m not just speaking of the rules of the country.  Those are important rules too, although those rules seem to be too porous for proper enforcement.  Rather, I am talking about an ancient law that is surprisingly wise in its intent and application.

    The books of Exodus through Deuteronomy are very much a codification of the basic law of an ancient nation.  They contain hundreds of civil laws and judgments that clearly pertain to an ancient culture, but quite often would be impractical to apply literally to a 21st century culture. 

For example, there is an interesting tidbit from the civil code found in the book of Deuteronomy: “You...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    The Athletes in Action Super Bowl breakfast is an annual event sponsored by former Green Bay quarterback Bart Starr to recognize NFL players on the basis of character and service.  In February 2006, the day before Super Bowl XL, the award was presented to New York Jets running back Curtis Martin.  Tony Dungy delivered the keynote address, who a year later would be handed the Vince Lombardi Trophy as head coach of the champion Indianapolis Colts.

    On that particular Saturday morning, Dungy spoke of the two things closest to his heart, and neither had anything to do with the National Football League. His two great passions of family and faith were evident, for just weeks before Dungy had buried James, his oldest son. ...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

    If I were the devil, I would plant a seed of doubt.  That would be easy to do in a skeptical age, for real miracles have an air of plausible deniability about them.  Someone is healed of a disease?  The body’s natural defenses did it.  Someone crosses your path as an answer to prayer?  Time and chance happens to all men.  You’re in need of a few bucks to pay the rent, and the exact amount shows up in the mail?  Somebody heard of your plight and wrote you a check.

    Plausible deniability affects us today as much as it did the people in Jesus day.   In spite of the great miracles Jesus performed, people still wanted a sign.  The very day after he fed a multitude by multiplying a few fishes and loaves, the very same people...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    My grandfather brought to this country his personal, wonderful tradition, which was the art of wine-making.  And he couldn’t have picked a better part of the world to ply this skill, for he settled in New York State, home to some of the best wine-making grapes in the country.

    He held nothing back when pursuing this passion, including a trip to the country to buy fresh grapes and carting them back to his basement in town.  I remember the elaborate apparatus where he squeezed the juice from the grapes, the fermentation process, and the barrels of red wine that were the result.

    One time – I must have been eight or nine years old – I was rummaging around his house and coming across a gallon jug into which he...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Job had lost it all and he knew it, but one thing he never lost was his faith that God is in charge.  He might not have agreed with the way God was doing things, let alone understand them, but he at least knew that God knew.

    Eventually, God blessed Job for a second time.  But before God restored him, the scripture tells us that first Job did something.  Job 42:10:  “And the Lord restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends.”  Listen to what this says:  When Job prayed for his friends, God restored Job’s losses.  And he didn’t restore Job’s losses until he had prayed for his friends. 

    I’m not sure we completely grasp the implications of this, but James in his epistle provides a clue.  In James 5:11...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    “Having a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry the message to other addicts and to practice these principles in all our affairs.”  -- Step 12 of the Twelve Step Program

    “Carry the message,” the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous said.  To those in the Twelve Step Programs it’s more than just a nice thought.   It can be the difference between life and death.  This twelfth step requires those who are recovering from the cauldron of substance abuse to form a network of support for others who suffer from the same problem.

    This is a unique concept, this idea of sinners helping sinners.  It’s a very biblical one, but one that many churches might find troublesome.  Sinners helping...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Alexander Solzhenitsyn's fictional One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich chronicles just one day in the life of an inmate of a Siberian Gulag.  At the end of the day, as the central character prepares for his rest, he reflects on all the day had brought.

    “Shukov went to sleep, and he was very happy.  He’d had a lot of luck today.  They hadn’t put him in the cooler.  The gang hadn’t been chased out to work in the Socialist Community Development.  He’d finagled an extra bowl of mush at noon.  The boss had gotten them good rates for their work.  He’d felt good making that wall.  They hadn’t found that piece of steel in the frisk.  Caesar had paid him off in the evening.  He’d bought some tobacco.  And he’d gotten over...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    They cast their nets all night and failed to catch a single fish.  For men whose livelihoods depended on a decent catch, the lack of one could be financially devastating.  To come ashore with nothing must have been have been a discouraging experience for men used to harvesting the normally abundant waters.  How would they pay their taxes?  What would they tell their families?

    Empty nets happen from time to time, but sometimes it seems as if the nets turn up empty more often than full.  That can be particularly true of churches that can’t seen to grow, though they try with all they know how.  They cast their nets with membership drives, evangelization efforts, media and literature programs, but for reasons it seems...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.  (James 1:27 NIV)



    Some months ago I wrote an article for this column entitled The Gift of George Bailey.  It was a reference to one of my favorite films, Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life.  Capra succeeds in reminding each one of us that we all have a part in God's plan whether we see it or not.  The seemingly small things we do daily can have a larger impact than we can imagine, and the world would be a lesser place if we had never been born.

    That story of encouragement is a good one to recall from time to time, for...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    If I were President, the first thing I would do is resign because I would probably be impeached anyway.  I am sure I would be accused of combining church and state even though technically I wouldn’t be.

    For if I were President, one of my first acts would be to call a National Day of Prayer and Fasting.  It wouldn’t be just a National Day of Prayer.  We have one of those, and for those few who participate, it has become an hour of prayer and music.

 

    I would make my day a real day of prayer by doing it the old fashioned way :  I would add back the fasting part.  And I would make it during the week and request all non-essential services be closed so that people could devote themselves to prayer, soul-searching,...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Being honest with God to the point of being blunt is perfectly okay with him – even to the point of being uncharitable.



    "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” (John 11:21 NKJV) These were the words of Martha after her brother Lazarus had died, and she spoke these words to the Son of God himself. If you read her comments with the proper inflection, you can sense her frustration. Jesus had failed to hurry to their side when he learned of Lazarus’ sickness. They had sent for him days before (verse 3), but the writer of the gospel, when presenting these facts, strangely juxtaposes two sentences: “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that he was sick, he stayed...

By: Bill Jacobs  

    In September 2006, passersby found a family murdered along an interstate highway on the Florida gulf coast. The father, mother and two boys, ages two and four were lying on the ground outside their vehicle when they were murdered, indicating an execution.

 

    What causes some people to commit such cruel, remorseless crimes? The New Testament says much about the capacity for sin caused by “carnal nature” and “the flesh.” Scripture states in Jeremiah 17:9 that the human heart is “desperately wicked.” Some people believe that our nature was passed from Adam and Eve—that we are born evil from birth.

 

    This idea has seeped into how we treat children. We know of an evangelical who has marketed a parenting program for Christians in which he tells us that babies are self-centered to the core. He advises parents to put them on rigid feeding schedules and let them conform to the parents instead of the parents conforming to them. Better to let them cry a while, he advises, so they get used to the idea that they are not the center of the universe right from the beginning.

...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

    "I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none.” (Ezekiel 22:30 NIV)

 

     The midterm elections are now over, and most Americans, I presume are glad to have these full-fledged biannual rectal exams behind us.  Once again we were subjected to the notion that unless [insert your candidate’s name here] is elected, it will the end of Western Civilization as we know it.  

 

 

 

     I used to muse at those alarmist political ads and would write them off as the propaganda that they are, but sadly there is a sense of foreboding among our populace these days that recognizes...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Shortly after the 2004 elections, I spoke with a despondent elderly gentleman who didn’t know me as well as he thought he did.  “This isn’t the same country I grew up in,” he said.  He was bemoaning the fact that social conservatives had gotten their way.  “I see no difference between them and the Taliban.” 

    I was so taken aback by this that I flat-out didn’t know what to say.  I am clearly a social conservative and some might argue a member of the religious right (though I doubt they would accept me given my unorthodox theological views), and yet I have no desire to string infidels up by the neck from soccer goals.  In fact I would fight till exhaustion for the ACLU’s right to proclaim their opinions, though contrary...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Imagine the angst you would feel if you were caught in a desert place with your children in tow, but no water and no visible means of attaining any.  Imagine if you were there at the behest of a man who had promised you entry into a land of plenty, yet without water whatever dreams you had and whatever credibility he had would both evaporate like the dry well before you.

    I would bet you would have something to say to the man who led you there.  And indeed the people of Israel did just that.  “Why did you bring the Lord’s community into this desert, that we and our livestock should die here?  Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place? It has no grain or figs, grapevines or pomegranates. And there is...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

    To many people, the Law of God is a set of “have to’s”.   “I have to watch what I say.  I have to keep my mitts off other people’s property.  I have to tell the truth.”  And so on.

    But in reality, the Law of God is a series of “get to’s”.  If everyone kept the law, we would get to live in safe neighborhoods.  We would get to leave doors unlocked.  We would get to have honest and noble civic leaders.  We would get to have strong families and loving relationships.

    And there is something else we would get to have.  We would get to have some time for the important things in life.  It’s a sad commentary that our fast food, 24/7 world leaves us less and less time to cement relationships with those who should...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    When I moved first to Missouri, I encountered a different personality type.  For lack of a suitable term, I have come to call it "self-effacing wisdom." A person with self-effacing wisdom would say something like this:  "I don’t know a whole lot about these things and I’m not the brightest bulb on the string, but it just seems to me .", and then out of his mouth comes a profundity that knocks you over with insight.     In a small group Bible Study recently, I experienced the wisdom of a couple who are the self-effacing wisdom types.   Their names are Gary and Sandy.     Gary and I needle each other as frequently as possible and he usually gets the best of me, but that’s okay because his wife usually gets the...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    There is a chapter in the Book of Revelation that contains a curious passage with some rarely heard phraseology.  Verses 4 - 6 of Revelation 20 read:     "I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection.  Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection. The second death...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

    It seems to be an anomaly that a loving God as depicted in the Scriptures would condemn the majority of people who have ever lived to an eternity apart from him.  That at least is the idea we get from traditional Christian theology.  Speaking of Jesus, Paul said, "There is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12 NIV). Does that imply that billions of Hindus, Buddhists, animists, agnostics, and plain old decent human beings throughout history have no hope, for by dint of birth in time and place they never quite got the Christian message?     Jesus himself once said that "no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him" (John 6:43 NIV), while Peter wrote that God is "not...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

    When Eve offered Adam that infamous piece of fruit, what should he have done?  The obvious answer, of course, would be to refuse it.  But what else?     What Adam should have done is found in part in an unusual High Day mentioned in Leviticus 23. "The tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. Hold a sacred assembly and deny yourselves, and present an offering made to the LORD by fire.   Do no work on that day, because it is the Day of Atonement, when atonement is made for you before the LORD your God. "  (Leviticus 23:27-28 NIV)     The Day of Atonement is more commonly known by its Hebrew name Yom Kippur.  In our English Bibles, the word kippur is translated "atonement", but a more precise translation would...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

“How Long, O Lord, Holy and True?” – (Revelation 6:9)

    In The New Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (Bridges-Logos Publishers, copyright 1997), Harold J. Chadwick states that there were more Christians martyred in the 20th century than in all previous centuries combined (p 323).  Such a statement is not at all outlandish if one thinks of the millions murdered by Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, and even right now in places like Africa, Pakistan, Indonesia, China, and other darkened corners of the world.

    It should also remind us to be thankful we live in a land that guarantees religious freedom.  Because we have been honored with the blessings of liberty, we have little appreciation for the tribulation that much of the world,...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

    She said she couldn’t be in our church because our church is full of sinners.  Those weren’t her exact words, but it was the subtext of her complaint.  One member once stole something, she said.  Another gossips.   Another has impure thoughts.  People never listen when she tries to share her problems.     One by one she pulled from her gunnysack examples of how we each miss the mark.  None of us could quite jump high enough to touch the line on the wall that would make us acceptable in the sight of God and man.     She was right.  It all sounded very much like our church.  It probably sounds a lot like yours too.     I once had a man tell me that he long ago quit looking for the perfect church because if he joined...

By: Lenny Cacchio

It can seem like a boring, pointless section of Scripture, this Nehemiah Chapter 3, but it’s there for a reason.  It contains name after name of those who built the walls of the city of Jerusalem, describing each one’s section of the wall and what they did. Reading this passage might at first seem like a treatment for insomnia, but read it closely, and it is clear that in writing it, Nehemiah had a purpose.  Evidently, he wanted to record for posterity the names of those who sacrificed for the good of the city.  Saying thank you is always in order, and especially so when an important undertaking is accomplished.  And make no mistake.  Building the walls of a city was incredibly important.  In those days the walls provided protection...

By: Lenny Cacchio

Faith sometimes takes a strange shape.      One time early in Jesus’ ministry he and his disciples boarded a ship on the Sea of Galilee, when a windstorm blew and buffeted the ship mercifully.  Several of the disciples were seaman and surely had weathered such that frequent that sea, but this apparently was worse than most.  The boat was filling with water and was in danger of sinking.   But through it all, Jesus was in the stern of the ship, fast asleep.  They cried, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" (Mark 4:35-41).

    I find it easy to identify with the disciples’ reaction.  Like them, I know that Jesus is the Christ. I have seen him doing his work in others’ lives and my own.  He tells me that...

By: Lenny Cacchio

Pray for the gift of George Bailey.     As I write this, I am two weeks removed from leaving an employer of 24 years for an opportunity elsewhere. The announcement of my departure went out, and then came the phone calls and cards and face to face meetings.   Only then did I understand the gift of George Bailey.     George Bailey was the Jimmy Stewart character in the movie It’s a Wonderful Life.  Stewart played the frustrated building and loan manager who wished he had never been born, until he was given a glimpse of what his corner of the world would have been without him.      I worked with some clients for more than two decades.  During that time I walked with them through valleys and over mountaintops.  I saw...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Some time ago, when I was going through one of my periodic trying times, an acquaintance suggested keeping a journal of "God moments".  At the end of each day, I was to open my journal and write down the incidents where God’s day intersected with mine.      After beginning my journey in search of such moments, I was amazed to see God’s fingerprints in my life. Often I pray for God’s protection on my family and me. At the end of the day I might recall that if I had not been delayed at the office, I might have been engulfed in the middle of a jackknifed eighteen-wheeler instead of in the traffic back-up behind it.      Another time a friend happened to pop into the office on a particularly dreadful day, and gave me a God...

By: Lenny Cacchio

Where there is no vision, the people perish. (Proverbs 29:18 KJV)

    If I were to ask you what a good mission statement for our country would be, could you recite one?  Likely you could come up with one with a little thought, but the fact that it takes some thought is symptomatic of the problem.      At critical times in our history, leadership has provided a unified vision around which the nation could rally.  Ronald Reagan had his shining city on the hill, borrowed from John Winthrop’s City on a Hill sermon.  Lincoln had his "last best hope of mankind" message.  Roosevelt spoke of a rendezvous with destiny.  Jefferson had his inalienable rights.  Woodrow Wilson wanted to make the world safe for democracy.  Emma Lazarus...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Tod Robberson of the Dallas Morning News made an interesting leap of logic recently that illustrates in part the moral confusion of our times.  Writes Mr. Robberson, "In the past three months, Muslims around the world have rampaged against cartoons in a Danish newspaper deemed to be mocking Islam, and an Afghan (sic) faced the death sentence for converting to Christianity.  Meanwhile, two popular Christian preachers in the U.S. stoked the flames by labeling Islam as an evil or violent religion."      Mr. Robberson goes on to characterize both the Christian and Muslim subjects of his opening paragraph as extremists.  Not knowing precisely who the two Christian are, let’s take a look at the interesting comparison he attempts to...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

    Imagine, if you will, losing everything dear to you and reflecting on the things you lost.  That’s what we read about in the Book of Job, the story of a man whose life became a disaster.  At such times of trial it is normal to long for things as they once were, and that is precisely what Job did.      In the 20th Chapter of that book, Job describes the honors of the life he once knew.  His life once dripped with wealth and comfort (v. 6).  He sat in the gate of the city where he received respect (vv. 7-9) and where the honorable men hung on his words (vv. 9-11).  He did great works of service for those in need (vv. 12-13).  He was a judge among them, and the people came to him to plead the cause of justice (vv. 14-17). ...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Let me tell you about Brother Nelson.  When I first met him, my family and I were "between churches".  We had wrangled an invitation to a church’s potluck, and were enjoying the good food and kind people when I noticed Brother Nelson.  He was a beehive of activity, first making sure the trash barrels had fresh bags in them, hauling out the trash if they were full, then making sure everyone had enough to eat, or seeing if anyone needed another drink, or sweeping up a spill on the floor.  He managed to stop long enough to say a few words with everyone, including me, never once losing the smile from his face.     Finally, after everyone had gone through the line, Brother Nelson picked up a plate and flatware and took his...

By: Lenny Cacchio

"The Message" is a modern semi-translation, semi-paraphrase of the Bible. I neither endorse it nor condemn it because it is like most Bible versions - a sincere attempt by fallible human beings to present the words of scripture in understandable English.

One passage from "The Message" nails a concept in a way found lacking in most translations. "All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, He brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us." (II Corinthians 1:3-4, The Message)

The phrases...

By: Lenny Cacchio

Have you ever felt like this?

1.  “God, where have you gone?  Why aren’t you with me anymore?”

2.  “God, take this trial away from me!”

3.  “I am so distraught that I just want to go to sleep and never wake up.”

    If you have ever had those thoughts, congratulations!  You have experienced the same thoughts and emotions as your Savior.  Listen to his words.  “My God, my God!  Why have you forsaken me?”  (Matthew 27:26)  “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.”  (Matthew 26:39)  “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” (Matthew 26:38)

    The Apostle Paul was right when he said that “no temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man” (1 Corinthians...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

    Try this experiment. Walk into your place of employment with a wad of one-dollar bills and try to give them away. See if people take them. I tried it once. "Anybody want this?" It was hard to find a taker. Someone finally took me up on the offer, but then promptly handed it back. "What’s the catch?" she asked. "Are these real? Why are you doing this?"

    Finally, I put a stack of ones in the kitchen with a sign that read: "Free.Take One." When they figured out that there were no strings attached, they got together and decided to use the money to buy donuts for the office. I don’t even like donuts.

    People tend to be suspicious of freebies. No one goes around giving stuff away and expecting nothing in return....

By: Lenny Cacchio  

Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance. (Jesus, as quoted in Mark 2:17 NKJV)

    All of Jesus disciples were in need of a physician. James and John wrangled constantly over being the greatest in the kingdom, and Peter’s good intentions could not overcome his impetuosity. Matthew’s history as a tax collector implies an uncertain reputation.  Thomas had doubts, and Phillip lacked faith. Some of these men were so reticent that their voices are never heard in the Scriptures.

    All were in need of the healing of the Great Physician, and all save one accepted the offer of that gift. We are left to speculate about the reasons for Judas rejection of eternal life and of Jesus as his Savior, but there is one thing that we do know: Jesus came to heal those who are sick. He came to call sinners, but not the righteous, to repentance.

...

By: Lenny Cacchio

I will make you fishers of men. -- Jesus, Matthew 4:19.

As the fishermen in Jesus’ entourage well knew, to catch fish you have to use the right bait.  You can’t just throw a hook into the water and expect the fish to strike.   The marketing of Christianity, aka, fishing with the right bait, is big business these days.  It is the subject of hundreds of books, thousands of magazine articles, and scores of seminars.  Some people call it evangelism, and evangelism a good thing.  But we should bear in mind that the fishermen Jesus knew fished with nets, not with hooks. With a hook and a minnow, you’ll catch a fish one at a time, and that’s good, but with a net, you’ll catch thousands. In the book of Acts we see Peter...

By: Bill Jacobs

    Someone asked me recently about the idea of a teen-oriented festival site. Everyone would be welcome, but the focus would be on teens. When I first entertained this idea I was enthused. Many of our teens feel discouraged about fitting in at church. We need to make them feel more a part. However, after thinking about it, I realized I was falling into a trap.

    People in Western Culture, when they want to help a group of people, usually create a program or an activity for them. For example, from time-to-time at church we have youth services, teen Bible studies and teen dances. This type of effort often meets with a popular response. Teens have specific issues they would like to hear addressed in Bible studies. They appreciate...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

    Early in the 20th century a gentlemen who was worried about the state of things decided to study the geography of the world, find the safest place, and move there.  In the end he discovered a south sea island and took residence at a little place called Guadalcanal.     I know of Christians today who, worried about the end times, have packed their belongings and are holed up somewhere out West.  Others have attempted to leave the country.  Many others, depending on their theological bent, eagerly await a Place of Safety or a rapture to save themselves from the wrath of the last days.     But the Bible I read tells me that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind (II Timothy 1:7),...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    A few weeks ago I was a victim of a four-car bang-up on the way to work.  The four people involved in this mishap all waited for the presence of a police officer, who courteously and professionally took separate statements from each of us about what had happened.      I haven’t yet seen the police report, but there is one thing I know for certain:  All four of us involved gave different statements, describing different parts of the accident, and each of us told the story differently.  I fully expect that some of the details differ.  I remember one car spinning out in front of me, but now that I think about that split second of chaos, I might have seen her spinning out of control behind me through my rearview mirror.  Regardless,...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Instant access to information on the internet is certainly one of the blessings of our age.  In a fraction of the time that it once took, we can read about the geography of Madagascar, research the veracity of the latest urban legends, check the value of our investments, look for employment opportunities, listen to the President’s latest speech and the opposing party’s reaction, and learn about the latest alternative energy sources.  We can buy a best-seller, download music, research the trade-in value of our cars, chat with a stranger in Finland, argue politics with someone in New York, buy tickets to Las Vegas, and ask advice on anything from homeopathic medicine to the deciphering of logarithms.      All of this we can do...

By: Allie Dart

    Are you neglecting one of the most important elements in raising your children? Do you fully understand the one, often neglected thing you should be doing that will give you joy, comfort and satisfaction throughout your life?

    Parents usually devote about 18 years of their lives supporting, housing, clothing, raising and educating a child. During this time a wise parent recognizes the need to deliberately teach that child to be employable and marriageable. Judging from our welfare state and high divorce rates, knowing these things is not inherent within children. They must be taught with words and example.

    But there is a step beyond shaping your children to have good work ethics and to make someone a loving...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    This might be his only chance.  As he sat by the road begging, someone told him that the man from Nazareth, a certain Jesus, was walking by.  Unable to restrain himself, he cried,  "Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!"     He was a blind man, Bartimaeus by name, and the more those around him demanded he be quiet, the more he yelled, "Son of David, have mercy on me!"     "Son of David."  By this simple phrase, Bartimaeus, who could not see, revealed that he could see what most around him could not, that this Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, the promised son of David who was to come.  Mark tell us that Jesus, upon hearing this, "Stood still and commanded him to be called" (Mark 10:49 NKJV).  Then Jesus asked him, "What...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this adversity that had come upon him, each one came from his own place--Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. For they had made an appointment together to come and mourn with him, and to comfort him. And when they raised their eyes from afar, and did not recognize him, they lifted their voices and wept; and each one tore his robe and sprinkled dust on his head toward heaven. So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great. (Job 2:11-13 NKJV) Job’s friends get a bum rap. Granted they were obtuse when they opened their mouths, and the epithet “Job’s Comforters”...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Americans have a penchant for not appreciating their heroes and giants until they are no longer with us. Abraham Lincoln (various called a buffoon and a baboon), Harry Truman ("to err is Truman"), Ronald Reagan ("a madman") all found honor in the generations that followed.

    Another famous American, while afforded a degree of respect these days, is still overlooked by many who have yet to understand the full depth of his intellect and world view.  Sadly, where he stood on the social issue closest to his heart is either misunderstood or bent by his presumed heirs.  I am going to quote from his own words.  See if you can guess who this man was.

    "Some things are right and some things are wrong, no matter...

By: Bill Jacobs

    A good friend and I were talking about the need to make our congregations good, safe places for our children. He observed that it is the tendency for many to think about help in a programmatic way: have a need; fill it by creating a program.

    Several interesting thoughts came from that observation. First, we noticed that Jesus did not start a single program. He started a movement, but no programs. Second, we noted that Jesus interacted with people directly to help them. If people were sick he healed them. If they were confused he told them a story or asked them illuminating questions. If children appeared before him, He picked them up and blessed them. In His thirty-three years of human life, he helped people primarily...

By: Allie Dart

    Friendship-making skills are the number one thing churchgoing teenagers are interested in learning.Acquiring these skills ranks higher with these young people than learning more about who God is, and coming to know and love Jesus Christ. It may surprise you to know that it rated even higher than marrying and having a happy family or having a lot of money, according to researcher George Barna. What this shows is how much teenagers long to love and be loved.

    Everyone needs friends. But it’s important to understand that not everyone can be a friend. Some kids are so selfish that no matter how nice you are to them, they may not be the kind of people that you will want to hang-out with. You may have to love this type of person...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    I used to believe that following the Bible would lead to investment success. In spite of the fact that I failed miserably, I still believe the Bible holds the key to financial success. The problem is not the Bible, but in the particular prophetic scenario that I used to inform my investment decisions.

    I was absolutely sure that Western Europe would be the economic powerhouse of the future. The United States would degenerate into insignificance, beset with economic cirrhosis and social unrest. In line with conventional ecological theories of the day, China and India would suffer atrocious food shortages leading to mass starvation of millions. This would be caused partially by a new ice age that we would bring on ourselves...

By: Allie Dart

 

    "What is the most serious threat confronting teenagers today? It’s promiscuity and pregnancy" according to Insights, March 2, 1998. How did this happen? Our society is constantly redefining morality and overlooking the standard whereby we should base our morals.

    But should society be the standard for basing our morality? A counter- culture movement hit our nation throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s. Students protested what they considered to be repressive of women’s sexual pleasure, which was to be kept within the walls of heterosexual marriage. Medical contraceptives were ushered in, taking away the fear of pregnancy for the free-love movement. This movement told us that premarital sex releases people...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    We pray for God’s involvement in our lives, but do we expect it? Jesus said he would never leave nor forsake us, but often we pray with the low expectations of a skeptic.

    We are not alone in this. Once Peter was imprisoned (Acts 12), and in correct response the brethren in Jerusalem gathered in prayer. By the grace of God, Peter escaped prison, but when he appeared at the doorstep of the prayer group, they refused to believe that their prayer had been answered.

    On the one hand it should be an encouragement to us that the early church, as infused with the Spirit of God as they were, could have the same doubts that we encounter daily. And it is also an encouragement that God can and does answer a prayer that...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    My friend hadn’t been to church for quite some time, so I invited him out for a cup of coffee.“I can get more out of just staying home and studying my Bible than I can from the sermon.”Sadly, I had to agree.The sermons we had back then were models of disorganization and pabulum.What passed for fellowship was an exercise in inanities.Conversation was gossip warmed over, and cliques were formed, dissolved, and reformed almost as if by schedule.

    Dysfunctional churches are a part of the national landscape, and more often than not such dysfunction can be traced to leadership or, better said, the lack thereof.Reading Paul’s letters to the churches reveals that this is not just a 21st Century phenomenon.The church at Corinth...

By: Lenny Cacchio

On October 12, those of us the Church of God Kansas City lost Ray Dahl, a dear friend and brother. Four years ago this month our congregation honored Ray on his 85th birthday. Though he would deny it, years do make wisdom, and his comments that evening touched all of us who were there. They are presented here in his memory. LC -------------------------- Ray Dahl’s Remarks 85th Birthday Celebration October 31, 2001 Thank you so much for being here tonight, and my thanks to John Akin and others who organized this dinner. When John told me a party was being planned, I literally pleaded with him to call it off. I have done absolutely nothing to deserve a party like this - except to...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    It’s a curious thing that God would give a king a great victory, only to have him bow down at the altar of the vanquished foes’ idol. That’s what one ancient king did. In the name of the God of Israel he conquered the enemy of his nation, then gave honor to the gods of the people those gods couldn’t protect. (II Chronicles 25:14-15)     Some scholars point out that many in Israel viewed their God as just one of many gods, each of whom had their own little territories where their power was the greatest. The God of Israel, so they thought, had preeminence only in their little corner of the world, whereas Moloch or Chemosh would be the powers in their special neighborhoods. Because they accepted this little deception, it took...

By: Jim Ross

    I remember the first time I met JD. His real name was Jack Douglas Rader, but everybody called him JD.

    I was attending my first ever "handgun silhouette" target match. That is a form of target shooting that involves using .44 magnums and other even more powerful handguns to try to knock over steel targets at ridiculous distances for a handgun. In this kind of competition, you need a "spotter" to stand or sit behind you to use a spotting scope or binoculars to tell you where your shot went when you miss. As a beginner you miss a lot. I was a beginner.

    So, there I am at this target match, by myself, a stranger in a strange place. All up and down the firing line there are very loud noises coming from the .44 magnums...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    "We remember the fish which we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic, but now our appetite is gone. There is nothing at all to look at except this manna." (Num 11:5-6 NAS)     Somehow the months in the wilderness had dulled their memories. Gone was the Israelite’s recollections of the beatings, the torture, the backbreaking labor, the slavery, and the death. As they wandered in the wilderness with only manna to eat, their vision of Egypt became one of three square meals a day, the security of a place to put up one’s feet at night, and the certainty that tomorrow would bring more of the same.     But now they were free men and women, and the responsibilities of...

By: Lenny Cacchio

“The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it.” (Proverbs 27:12 NIV) “Give portions to seven, yes to eight, for you do not know what disaster may come upon the land.” (Ecclesiastes 11:2 NIV)

    These two admonitions have played out before us during this hurricane season. Many saw the danger and took refuge, sometimes a thousand miles away. Through the horror of the storms, countless feel-good stories have wound their way through news outlets and the internet. Stranger helping stranger. Hospitality and kindnesses. Decent people doing good things for others in need. And many people saved their lives.     “Give portions to seven, yes to eight,” the scripture says. Many...

By: Cynthia Saladin  

    Sometimes raising children seems like an uphill struggle - a constant testing of limits, rules, and authority. “I don’t want to go to bed right now.” “Why do I have to wear my hat?” “I don’t like green beans.” “I don’t want to share with Christopher.” “Why, Mommy, why?” “Please can I do it one more time? Please.” And sometimes I get very weary and worn down. Sometimes I give in to the entreaties because I’m so tired of the battle. I make a deal; I hear myself saying, “O.K., one more time, and then it’s time for bed.” Sometimes it works; sometimes it just prolongs the battle. Later, as I am thinking about the struggle, whichever of the many daily contests of wills, I start second-guessing myself. Should I have given in? Was...

By: Lenny Cacchio

“Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?” (John 6:70 NKJV)     Truthfully, I liked Scott until he got involved in politics. That’s when something about him changed. Maybe the political parties send their people to a special school to learn the craft of political persuasion, or at least they go to party powwows to plot strategy. In any case, words issued forth from Scott’s mouth that sounded suspiciously like the words that issued forth from almost everyone else of his political persuasion. But it was curious to me how his political opponents all seemed to have skeletons in their closets that only a select few seemed to know. His generosity was such that those skeletons were being shared with me.     Several...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

    “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” (Matt 10:28-31 NIV)     Comforting words, those. If God is aware of sparrows falling from the sky, how much more does he know of our travails! Yet missed in this talk of God’s omniscience is a startling fact: sparrows do fall from heaven, and God does nothing to stop it. Many sparrows have fallen in his sight, and not just sparrows. People fall too. It must grieve a loving God’s heart to have seen the sufferings of the ages. Pestilence and storms. Warfare and tyranny. The suffering of martyrs....

By: Lenny Cacchio  

    It is hard to write an essay on the goodness of God when there is so much evil in the air. Why did God allow Katrina to disrupt so many lives? That is a natural question for a ten-year old, and even great theologians wrestle with it. How can all-powerful and all-loving God allow bad things to happen to good people?     I don’t have all the answers, and I won’t tell you that I do. Rabbi Harold Kushner struggled with it, and through simple deductive logic came to a startling conclusion. He reasoned that if God is just, if God is loving, and if God is all-powerful, then such a God couldn’t allow bad things to happen to good people. Therefore, either God is not just, or God does not love, or God is not all-powerful.    ...

By: Allie Dart

    Have you ever had the opportunity to be the speaker for a group of teens? By some chance, were you the only person there who wasn’t a teen? Was the situation a little intimidating? As we grow older a challenge such as this may become even more frightening. But why should an adult be frightened to be with a group of youngsters that may only be one-third or even one-quarter of his age? But whether you’re a parent, youth worker, or minister, the more you understand teenagers, the better you will be able to connect with them.

    Jay Kesler in his book, Too Big to Spank, gives four things we adults need to understand when dealing with teens. One of the first things we can do is to put ourselves in their shoes as much as possible...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    I know we don’t sing it this way, but the anthem ends in a question: “Oh say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?” That’s a question, not an exclamation, and it reverberates down the ages as a question to each generation of Americans.     The star-spangled banner indeed yet waves, but it waves only because the land of the free has been the home of the brave. This is my home because I value every shred of freedom that the Constitution protects. Where else in the world can a woman speak aloud proclaiming her disgust with a government that is bound to protect her right to make such statements? Where else in the world can a person provide for his own physical protection,...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Lately I find myself yelling at the television set. I get angry when I see the stunts pulled by our duly elected officials, and I get angry with the garbage foisted upon us as entertainment, and I get angry at the lack of civility in public discourse.     I know that God gets angry about some things too, but I also know that God doesn’t get angry is the same way that I get angry. I get righteously indignant and want to throw my shoe at the tube. I compare myself to the other side and, like that little guy in the nursery rhyme, I boast, “What a good boy am I!” Somehow, I don’t think God expresses his anger in the same way I do, and certainly his motives are different. A few examples of Jesus’ anger illustrate the point: ...

By: Lenny Cacchio

Somebody! Help me understand this.

    In Philadelphia a woman was thrown in jail because she couldn’t pay $120 in library fines. Notices from the library didn’t get to her because she had moved several times, including some stays at a battered women’s shelter.

Meanwhile, in Boston a judge sentenced a convicted rapist to probation, and he told the victim to "get over it".

    A terrorist found with a carload of explosives and plan to blow up Los Angeles International gets 13 years in prison, just weeks after an octogenarian businessman gets life because stockholders lost lots of money when the company failed.

If our society wants send the message that money is more important than life and safety, our justice...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    On a recent tour of the internet I was aghast at the revisionist view of the blundering exploits of a certain Neville Chamberlain of Great Britain. Chamberlain was the Prime Minister prior to Winston Churchill, and he believed that Adolph Hitler could be bought off with pieces of someone else’s real estate. He proudly called the policy of putting a slice of Czechoslovakia under the Nazi jackboot “Appeasement”, and he congratulated himself for bringing home “peace in our time.”

    Some well-meaning people actually believe that Chamberlain’s policy failed not because it was based on a flawed theory, but because the evil Winston Churchill sabotaged it. Supposedly, if Chamberlain’s view had prevailed, World War II would have...

By: Lenny Cacchio

The people of the land have used oppressions, committed robbery, and mistreated the poor and needy; and they wrongfully oppress the stranger. So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one. (Ezekiel 22:29-30 NKJV)

Then said I, Here am I; send me. (Isaiah 6:8)

In a recent sermon a reference was made to Ezekiel 22:29-30, followed by the lamentation that in our land today there is no one standing in the gap, no one to repair the walls of morality. It’s a point well-taken, and it should have been a point of challenge for the thousand people who heard it. Would they be willing to stand in the gap, or were they...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

    He was wrapped in an enigma, and so he is now. For thousands of years theologians have bandied about how Judas could betray his friend and teacher for the price of a slave. The depth of evil is thankfully unfathomable to most of us, and the why’s and wherefore’s of Judas’ betrayal will be saved for a different discussion.     The question for today is the length to which Jesus went to save Judas from himself. Time and again Jesus both encouraged and warned Judas. Along with the other apostles Judas received power and authority over demons and he cured diseases (Luke 9:1-2). Miracles were performed at his hands! As an example, Jesus washed Judas’ feet in an ordinance of humility and service at the Lord’s Last Supper (John 13:4-5). ...

By: Lenny Cacchio

Things aren’t always as they seem.     General Ulysses S. Grant owned slaves. Robert E. Lee did not. Republican President Richard Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency and Affirmative Action. A larger percentage Republicans than Democrats – in both houses of Congress -- voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.     Even the devil can appear as an angel of light, and it’s evident from the Gospels that the disciples failed to see clearly the light of Jesus until some time after his resurrection.     Two of them approached him about sitting on his right hand and his left in the kingdom, showing among other things how little they grasped what the kingdom is all about. To them such a place seemed like a position...

By: Allie Dart

    When you think of kids trekking off to school, one usually thinks of backpacks and lunch boxes. In the last few years, something new has been added. Cell phones are the newest school accessory for teenagers, a tool many think they can’t do without. “Nearly half of US Teens and Tweens have cell phones,” according to NOP World.

    Cell phone ownership among teens and tweens has now topped 16 million nationwide, “with almost half (44%) of 10-18 year-olds in the US owning a cell phone...Teens and tweens are on the cutting edge of cell phone technology and are no longer excited by typical single-function cell phones.” Today’s kids are most interested in multi-functioning cell phones that convert into mp3 players or into digital...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    These are days that require our best. Though for some time there has been no attack on our homeland, dangers to our freedom and security are real, and many sense a general unease over the course of events. We see a growing proliferation of nuclear know-how and capabilities among nations whose intents and purposes are not ours. We see a diminution of our national wealth through increasing trade deficits and the transfer of jobs and productive capacity overseas. Communists and oil sheiks finance our government deficits, and our porous borders invite the importation of criminals and terrorists. The terrorist attacks on our troops and the Iraqi people seem to continue unabated and there is no end in sight.     Recent reports indicate...

By: Lenny Cacchio

“Love your neighbor as yourself,” Jesus taught. “And who is my neighbor,” the lawyer asked. Well, what about it? Who IS my neighbor? For this lawyer in question the simple instruction to love his neighbor as himself wasn’t good enough. If we listen closely, we can hear his lawyerly logic: "If I am to love my neighbor, then I needn’t love someone who is not my neighbor." Hence the question, "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus gave him an answer in the form of a parable (Luke 10:30-35 NKJV): "A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a certain priest came down that road. And when he...

By: Allie Dart

Dedicated to: Katie Swenson of Indiana Katherine McCommon of Texas Amanda Marsh of Texas Kyle Cofield of Alabama Robert Quinn of Georgia     If you are a 2005 graduate, you’ve probably received stacks of cards congratulating you. They’ve told you the sky’s the limit, success awaits you, and your future couldn’t look brighter. The speaker at your commencement exercise may have left you feeling that you can conquer the world. And we certainly hope you do.     Along with receiving your diploma or degree, you’ve received a lot more freedom. You’ll likely move out of your parents’ home and into a college dorm, or into your own apartment. This is what you’ve been waiting for. Isn’t it? So where do you go from...

By: Allie Dart

    The first thing kids need to know about the Bible is that it is relevant to them and their lives. The Bible was written “to teach his people how to live – how to act in every circumstance, for he wanted them to be understanding, just and fair in everything they did. ‘I want to make the simple-minded wise!’ he said. ‘I want to warn young men about some problems they will face. I want those already wise to become the wiser and become leaders by exploring the depths of meaning in these nuggets of truth’” (Proverbs 1:2-6 TLB). Kids need to know what the Psalmist said, “Your words are a flashlight to light the path ahead of me, and keep me from stumbling. . . (Psalm 119:105a).     Kids need to know the Bible is the most...