Making Life Work

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...

From Ronald L. Dart’s Born to Win Notes, written by Allie Dart  

    Years ago, when I was in charge of a small college, we had a dress code. It was far short of wearing a uniform, and had to do with things such as haircuts for the guys and modesty for the girls. Most students complied and got on with more important things like their studies. But some complained that we were making them into yellow pencils—all of them just alike.

    When I heard that, I had to laugh. But it is not surprising, given the psychology of young people who are searching for identity and self-expression. Having spent four years in the Navy, where we not only wore uniforms, we had to maintain a short haircut and shine our shoes, I wondered what all the hullabaloo was about.

...

From Ronald L. Dart's Program Notes, by Allie Dart  

    I don’t consider Jewish beliefs to be the norm for Christians, but the original Gospel accounts were written in such a way as to be understandable to Jews and practitioners of Judaism. Judaism is not the authority on what Christians should do and how they should understand the Bible. Make no mistake, the Bible is the sole authority. Since the Bible is our sole authority, it is all the more important that we should be careful interpreting what we are reading.

    A point was made in the Christian Origins series to keep in mind, when we read the Bible, that we’re reading someone else’s mail. And because of that, we often make mistakes in understanding what we are reading. This CD series...

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: Ronald L. Dart

Was it Jesus’ intent to create a hierarchy of human government over the individual Christian? Does the Christian ministry sit in Moses’ seat for the church? This article explains what you always wanted to know about church government but were afraid to ask!

    Paul stood on the beach staring out to sea. This would be his last time in this place. It would have been good to have visited Ephesus once more, but it was not to be. It was just as well. He would not have been in Ephesus one hour before a coalition of Jews and silversmiths would have been plotting murder. There was no point in putting temptation in their way.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    Was there something wrong with the Ten Commandments? Were they weak legislation in the first place? Or did they somehow become obsolete with the passage of time? If, as some suppose, the time came for the Ten Commandments to be abolished, there must have been a reason for it. The idea of the abolition of law is not foreign to us. We "abolish" or repeal laws often enough. But when we do repeal laws, why do we do it? There are many reasons. The law may be unenforceable. It may be unpopular with the people, and because of massive disobedience ("They can’t put all of us in jail"), the law simply can’t be maintained. The classic example of this was prohibition.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    Along with the marvelous teachings of Jesus, we often pick up some very bad ideas from our churches and organizations. One of the worst of these ideas, all too common in churches, is that our church is the sole repository of “God’s Truth.” When you think about it, this is obviously an arrogant assumption. And even when we begin to grow out of the idea, we still become easily confused because of the legacy it leaves behind.

By: Ronald L. Dart

The Second Key

    The best ideas are usually simple and this one is no exception. The idea was conceived long ago and is so simply stated that most of us would read right over it and never grasp its implications. It reads as follows: “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children” (Proverbs 13:22).

    I can hear you saying, “That sounds like a good idea, but a little tough to execute. I have enough trouble making ends meet as it is without worrying about the next generation.”

By: Ronald L. Dart

God so often disappoints us.

    No, let’s not kid ourselves, we place our hopes in God and those hopes are all to often disappointed. The fault, however, is not with God. The fault is with our expectations, and with what I call, "the God of our imagination." The only reason we could ever be disappointed with God is if He somehow doesn’t meet our expectations.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    There are no women in heaven," chuckled the preacher. "How do I know this? The Lord revealed it in Revelation 8:1 when He said there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour."

    It was all very amusing, and even the ladies enjoyed a little laugh at their own expense. After all, more than one of them had "talked someone’s ear off " sometime in the past 48 hours.

    Still, there was a little hurt in the laughter of some. To them it was just one more "put-down" for women. Only this time it came from an unexpected source, their pastor, from whom they felt they had a right to expect support, not humiliation.

By: Ronald L. Dart

The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter! Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they nurse their young ones: the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness (Lamentations 4:1-3).

    The high school graduating class of ‘94 was decimated by a terrible plague and no one paid it much mind. If a bus load of them had been killed on the way to a game, it would have made headlines–at least locally. If a school had blown up and killed a few hundred of them it would have made national, even worldwide, news.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    He is twenty years old, but he looks more like sixteen. In blue jeans and sweater, his hair neatly cut, he looks like he should have books under his arm and be headed for class. The district attorney says he is a cold-blooded killer. It seems he held up a convenience store late one night. The clerk offered no resistance and gave him all the money in the cash register. But as he scooped up the money and stuffed it into his pockets, this “student” calmly raised his pistol and shot the clerk squarely between the eyes just to leave no witnesses. Now the district attorney wants you, the jury, to find him guilty and sentence him to death.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    The Christian faith must seem downright confusing to an onlooker. Even the largest, seemingly the most monolithic Christian denominations are, in reality, composed of many factions. Unless you are an insider, you can remain unaware of the deep divisions that exist among Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans and even Catholics.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    Is there really an ever–burning hell where sinners are tormented with fire and brimstone throughout all eternity? Is it only for the very wicked? What about the “unsaved”? The Bible tells us there is only one name given in heaven and earth whereby we must be saved–the name of Jesus. What about all those who have never heard that name? Do they go immediately to the torments of a fiery hell at death? What about babies and little children? Surely they don’t go to hell? Churches have an astonishing variety of answers to these questions, but what does the Bible say? How can we really know the truth?

By: Ronald L. Dart

“Let none be faithless to the wife of his youth. For I hate divorce,
says the Lord the God of Israel.”

    Divorce is painful. If you have been through a divorce, you need no one to tell you that. Not only do the children get hurt, there are the grandparents, the family, the friends. And who can tell of the pain, of the anger that comes in the middle of the night to the two people who once loved each other above all others?

By: Ronald L. Dart

 

 

"And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years" (Genesis 1:14-19).

    Nothing God gave to man has been used so consistently for the purpose He intended. Every civilization of man has used the sun, the moon, or both for the demarcation of time. They had no choice. Even a hunting society had to take notice of the passage of seasons. When would the animals migrate to the north and when would they return? How soon would the antlered animals make their move down from the high country? No people dependent upon the land could fail to notice that there was a time to plant and a time to harvest. Their problem was the prediction of that time, and that required the observation of the sun. It required a calendar, and some form of calendar has always been a mark of civilization.

By: Ronald L. Dart

Did Jesus adjust God’s ancient laws of clean and unclean meats? The answer shouldn’t be hard to find. It should be right there in the four gospels.

    Everyone is concerned about health these days. Hundreds of books have been written on the subject, and yet people often neglect to consider what the best selling book of all time has to say about healthful eating habits.

By: Ronald L. Dart

 

    The holy days are, to me, an endless source of fascination. Every year I approach them with renewed anticipation. Long ago someone pointed out to me a simple, elegant pattern in the meaning of these days. The Passover, for example, portrays the sacrifice of Christ. The days of Unleavened Bread remind us to put sin out of our lives. Pentecost pictures the receiving of the Holy Spirit. Trumpets looks forward to the return of Christ and the resurrection. Atonement represents the binding of Satan and the whole world being "at one" with God. The Feast of Tabernacles look forward to the millennium, and the eighth day pictures the "Great White Throne" judgment.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    At first, Philip wondered why he was here. It was not a place anyone in his right mind would choose to be. It was hot. It was dry. It was the road from Jerusalem to Gaza.

    He had finished his work in Samaria, and an angel of God had told him, "Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert." So, here he was, and there was nothing in sight but a chariot and its travel party. By its markings, the chariot was Ethiopian.

By: Ronald L. Dart

”And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” (Mark 9:24 ).

    Jennifer's husband was going into the hospital on Monday for open heart surgery. He was a little young to be having heart problems, but the surgeon said that his youth was in his favor. There were risks, of course, but they did this surgery several times a week at this hospital. They were good at it.

By: Ronald L. Dart

 

“There are two kinds of people in the world,” intoned the preacher, “the saved and the lost. There is no middle ground with God.”

    Now there is a sobering thought. If indeed there are only two kinds of people in the world, and if I am “people,” I must be either saved or lost. And if I’m not consciously aware of having been saved, then I must be lost. And if I’m lost...

By: Ronald L. Dart 

    In the aftermath of the World Trade Center bombing, there was one question raised that no one really stopped to answer. Is it wrong for the United States to seek vengeance for the murder of the 5000 innocent people who died on September 11? Should we, as a country, turn the other cheek? There were those who thought the criminals who did this act should be brought to justice, but that it was wrong to merely seek revenge on Osama Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda organization.

By: Ronald L. Dart 

    In the aftermath of the World Trade Center bombing, there was one question raised that no one really stopped to answer. Is it wrong for the United States to seek vengeance for the murder of the 5000 innocent people who died on September 11? Should we, as a country, turn the other cheek? There were those who thought the criminals who did this act should be brought to justice, but that it was wrong to merely seek revenge on Osama Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda organization.

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

    "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

    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: 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

"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

    "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  

    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: 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

    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  

    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: 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...