Pastors' Blog

If the rocks could talk, what a tale they would tell.  Having just returned from four days in the Piedmont valleys of northwestern Italy with a class of architecture students here at Andrews University, I can only imagine the stories that are etched deep into the crags of the rocky sentinels that guard the seven valleys of the Waldenses.  Jetlagged I woke up early our first morning beside the Pellice River and walked the valley just as the first orange rays of sunlight were illuminating the ragged snow-capped peaks ringing the green fields and forests beneath them.  A thousand years earlier clusters of men, women and children—faithful to the witness of Christ and his truth—had lived in small granite walled and roofed houses, the ruins of which still dot these valleys. And into the pagan darkness of the Middle Ages those Waldensian alpine communities shined the light of unbroken truth, passed on from generation to generation.  In fact it is to them we owe the preservation of Holy Scripture, taught to their children, memorized by their youth, painstakingly hand copied onto parchment by the adults and hidden away in their mountain refuges. But the crimson tragedy of Waldensian history has proved true the words of Christ:  “And this is the condemnation, that light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19).  And so history painfully chronicles the horror of those brutal crusading armies, sent on their mission of extermination by the powers that dwelt in the plains of Italy.  We stood atop the Castelluzzo, a towering rocky promenade over a thousand feet above the Pellice banks, where entire communities of Waldenses were hurled off that precipice.  We walked the streets of the ancient La Torre village where the canons boomed at 4 a.m. on April 24, 1655, the prearranged signal to begin the massacre of its unsuspecting citizens.  They still remember that extermination as “Bloody Easter.”  So unspeakable was that crime against humanity that when Sir Oliver Cromwell read the eye-witness accounts of the slaughter, he declared a day of fasting and prayer across England. And yet, as Tertullian observed, “the blood of martyrs is seed.”  The seed of Revelation 12’s woman.   The remnant seed of the woman that the dragon will yet turn his wrath upon (v 17).  But from that seed of faithful witness God will yet reap a global harvest of saved men, women and children.   Having just returned from His alpine harvest fields of long ago, I recommit my life to the Christ of the Waldenses and to the truth he preserved through them.   And I invite you to do the same.  For if seed is what God yet needs, then let us be that seed He would plant in the valleys where we live.

Listen to the “Motley Fool.” While most of us don’t suffer fools lightly, the Motley Fool is one voice we’d do well to pay heed. Last week I began a two-part mini-series that I’ll conclude today, “The Awkward Ambitions of a Middle Class” (both teachings are at our website: www.pmchurch.tv). Thanks to James D. Scurlock’s new book, Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit, and the Era of Predatory Lenders, you and I have found the courage to take on the shameful secret nobody wants to talk about—personal indebtedness.

In today’s part-two we’re going to tackle a divine prescription for our American consumerism’s discontent. And I’m certain you and I will find the biblical counsel not only pertinent, but practical. But in advance of filling out the study guide for today’s teaching, I’d like to share with you the Motley Fool’s six-point strategy for “eliminating credit card debt.” You may read a more detailed presentation of these six steps at the Motley Fool website: http://www.fool.com/seminars/sp/index.htm?sid=0001&lid=200&pid=0000.

If you’re shackled with credit card debts, prayerfully consider these six recommended steps:

#1—stop using your cards. Take them out of your wallet or purse. Cut them up if necessary. But credit counselors the world over agree. Quit using them. In today’s part-two I’ll share with you Dave Ramsey’s surprising critique of using them even when you’re paying them off every month.)

#2—stop the flood of credit card offers. The Motley Fool notes that you can force credit bureaus to stop selling your name by calling 1-888-OPTOUT to request the forms.

#3—always pay more than the minimum. Minimum payments are not a courtesy of the credit card companies; they’re strategically designed to keep you in debt to them for as long as possible.

#4—plan your attack. In today’s part-two be listening for Dave Ramsey’s prioritization strategy for eliminating your debts.

#5—reduce the interest rate. Credit card companies are willing to reduce their rates to keep you as a customer. Call their toll free number and ask for a rate reduction. Rates from 16% to 20% can be reduced to 11-12%. (But pay off your balances to avoid even those high rates.)

#6—consolidate your debts. Go to the Motley Fool site and read the small print of this step #6 carefully.

While Jesus wasn’t describing credit card debt, his promise can lift the hopes of every indebted home: “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36). This morning as we examine the path to freedom from debt, let every heart take hope and courage in the Christ who offers what we seek most. You can live free!

Sure you want to become a mother?  Here are some numbers you may want to crunch before you decide!  Statistics released this week in the latest Newsweek magazine reveal that the first two years of a new baby’s life will cost $32,000.  And if you’re wanting more than one child, you can plan on an added $24,000 for each additional child.  Just for their first two years of moving into your heart and home! And what will it cost to raise that little cherub to the age of 18?  Newsweek reports that over those eighteen years a middle-class family will spend an average of $190,980, not including college or lost wages from a parent who remains at home.  Per child.  Add the costs of college and the lost wages of that parent who stayed at home, and the estimated cost from infancy to age eighteen skyrockets to $1,589,793! Still sure you want to be a mom? Average stay-at-home mothers (what’s an average mom?) work 92 hours a week in their mothering (is anybody surprised?).  If you took her “homework” and parceled it out into the various jobs/tasks that she performs each week, she should be earning (based on the median national salary for the categories of labor she provides) a whopping $138,095 a year!  As Newsweek quips, “Sure, the validation is purely symbolic, but it may come as some solace at a time when stay-at-home moms are being taken to task in the new book ‘The Feminine Mistake’ for giving up the financial independence their [women’s rights] mothers fought so hard to win” (5-14-07 Newsweek). Are you a mom or a mother-wanna-be?  There’s an old, dusty Book that sits on American shelves across the land this Mother’s Day.  And in that Book the Author makes certain the genuine value of a godly mother is clearly portrayed.  “She watches over the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness.  Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: ‘Many daughters have done well, but you excel them all.’”  And then the wisest man who ever lived adds this summation:  “Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised.” (Proverbs 31:27-30) And so to all our mothers and moms, I know I express the sentiments of a grateful nation and church when on this Mother’s Day we rise up and indeed call you “Blessed.”   For you are truly the gift of God to us all.

Six contestants left for America’s new idol.  How’s that for a headline this week?  As the Today Show on NBC ran a report of the elimination countdown to American’s new “number one” amateur performer, the screen caption throughout the report blazed, “Idol Worship.”  How clever, but how true!  Except for you and me, of course.

I’ve been blessed teaching nineteen young seminarian preachers this semester.  One of the students, Shawn Brace, was assigned the second commandment, God’s prohibition against idol worship (see Exodus 20:4-6).   He did some research on previous contestants on Fox’s American Idol telecast (which, for those who don’t know, is an old-fashioned amateur hour that’s dictated by the millions of viewer votes that are electronically cast each week, slowly eliminating the contestants).  Shawn discovered that one year in the top tier of contenders, each was asked to name his personal “idol” (a hero, a role model, someone idolized).  One contestant was candidly honest in his written reply:  “Myself.”  His number one hero . . . himself.

Surprised?  Probably not.  After all we live in a society bent back onto itself in self-admiration, don’t we?  Driven by Madison Avenue and an entertainment and sports world where stars unabashedly self-promote, it seems only natural that we do the same, doesn’t it? Which, of course, has been the modus operandi on this planet from the beginning—look out for Numero Uno—as Adam and Eve and Cain and all our forefathers and foremothers have unsubtly taught us.  It was the original sin, after all, that brought down Lucifer and his loyal rebels.  Self-worship—making an idol out of “myself.”

That’s why the story of Jesus is so radical and hope-filled.  Because the God of the universe become Man entered our mortal stream of existence to dramatically, humbly show us the other way.  The way of the God who ever defers to others, who “made himself of no reputation and humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death” (Philippians 2:5-8).  Who died to the very self that is so ragingly strong in you and me.  And who now beckons us, “If you would come after Me, deny yourself, and take up your cross and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24).

The perfect invitation for the ending of this school year.  Because there’s a world waiting to be conquered—not for “myself” but for our Savior.  Who, of course, isn’t an idol at all, but is the greatest Hero of all.  Which is how I wish that young contestant had answered,  since—as it turns out—he grew up in the church I did.