Weekly Meanderings, June 8, 2013

Last updated on: June 8, 2013 at 12:03 am by Scot McKnight

Weekly Meanderings, June 8, 2013 2013-06-07T07:07:17-05:00 Scot McKnight

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Ten fitness myths… good read.

Nature’s strength (to the left).

The NCCA follows its own set of rules, but on this it means the young athlete will drive to another place and wash her car — on scholarship: “A member of a women’s golf team at a West Coast Conference school has been sanctioned by the NCAA for washing her car on campus, according to University of Portland basketball coach Eric Reveno. Reveno tweeted about the violation Wednesday after he learned of it during conference meetings, culminating his message with the hashtag #stopinsanity. “Just heard about two NCAA violations in WCC. 1) athlete using Univ. water to wash car, 2) coach text recruit ‘who is this?'” Reveno wrote. The WCC school in question self-reported the extra benefits violation to the NCAA, Yahoo Sports! reported. Yahoo also reported the NCAA asked the golfer to pay the school $20, which they said was the value of the water and hose.” The solution: make the college athletes professionals, which they are already, and be done with the nonsense.

Joel Miller, on the most highlighted verse in the most highlighted book, the Bible: “Read instead as the ancient Christians read it, Paul’s statement is not merely that we should take our anxieties to God, good as that may be. It’s that the judge of the universe is near so we can have confidence that wrong will be set right. It’s not about trying to suppress our worries and trust God, which is for many a necessary but challenging effort that contains within it many of its own worries. That’s the wrong focus. It’s about the realization that God will soon wipe away every reason for worry. It’s a reminder of our real hope. Our eyes are on the wrong thing if we’re merely praying to have life’s worrisome aspects eliminated so we can carry on stress free. Rather, we have no reason for anxiety because the judge of all the earth is already on his way. To be clear, it’s easier to write these words than live by them. But if we needed to be convinced of anything, it is not that prayer is a means to reduce our anxieties. It’s that Christ is coming.” Maybe this is the most often misused text.

Medgar Evers tribute. “Evers had been laying the groundwork for nearly a decade by then. In his role as field secretary for the NAACP, he traveled the state — registering voters, organizing boycotts of segregated businesses, and encouraging activists not to be intimidated. He also tried to lift what his widow calls the “cotton curtain” that had kept the violence in Mississippi hidden from the rest of the nation. One of his first NAACP assignments was investigating Emmett Till’s murder in 1955.”

Randy Heskett and Joel Butler: “Joel and I were also fascinated by just how important of a commodity wine was in the ancient world. We discovered that by the Roman age, people on average drank 100 gallons of wine a year. The biblical writers mention wine over 235 times and it was one of the largest economic sources in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean culture. Hence, vineyards were one of the first things destroyed in war because the destruction of the wine industry crippled the economy.”

Early christology in Jewish perspective.

Why is our work balance so out of whack? “Among all advanced nations, we rank 28th — barely better than Mexico. Why’s our work-life balance so bad if leisure is growing? Because single moms are growing faster.” That is, “This raises a thorny question: If we’re so rich, why are we working so hard that we don’t even have time to cherish the fruits of our productivity?” One more: “So when you hear that American work-life balance ranks poorly, remember that there really isn’t any such thing as “American work-life balance.” Instead there are intersecting trends — only a handful of which I’ve touched on here — showing that, although the workweek has fallen, the changing composition of families has put tremendous time-stresses on more mothers. Overall, research shows that lower-income men have never had more downtime, while working single mothers have never been more common. The first part is a problem. The second is a crisis.”

David Moore: “I don’t know how many times I have heard someone say, “Lloyd-Jones is the greatest preacher of the twentieth-century.” It is said with conviction. It is said with certainty. It is supposedly a self-evident fact. No doubt the good doctor was impressive in many ways, but it is not possible for any human to say “he is the greatest.” First, what are our criteria? Second, who can know another man’s motives? And third, one would have to be aware of every single other preacher to make such an assessment, and who knows that except God?! I read recently where someone said preachers need to stop introducing their wives as the most beautiful which indeed is good counsel. I would like to extend that to preachers and everyone else for that matter.”

Getting the Pharisees right.

David Lamb, finally getting a baseball at a Phillies game, and the great giveaway. Must-read. By the way, here’s a good timeline for the OT kings and prophets.

A missional guy confesses his sin about Willow Creek: “I believe I have made the mistake that many do. In becoming such a huge advocate of missional communities, I have come across as arrogantly opposed to other forms which the Church takes on to accomplish the mission of God in this world. I resolved early in the start-up phase of Soma to avoid defining ourselves by what we were not. I determined I would say what we were and what we were for. However, in the process I stopped affirming the other parts of the body of Christ that are different. I am sorry. It is arrogance and pride to believe our way is THE way. A few years ago I, along with our elders, repented of this pride at one of our gatherings. This pride showed up in methodolatry. We repented of it. However, it seems that it didn’t go out far enough. There is still a perception that we stand with an arrogant posture regarding our convictions…. There are so many things I learned while there. I learned how to cast vision in a compelling way. I grew in how to say old things in new ways (one of the key lessons about teaching Bill gave me). I understood the importance of team and the trust that must be maintained and protected. I also learned how damaging it is to lose the team’s trust (one of my failures at Willow). I saw the power of valuing those who serve in ministry. Willow is one of the best examples I know of in this area (I’m still working on doing this one better). I discovered that there are unlimited ways to apply creativity to problem-solving if given the time and diversity of perspective. And I saw that thousands of different people can be led in the same direction together if the mission is worthy of giving one’s life to. In all of this, I saw in Bill a father who dearly loves his children and values their uniqueness greatly. I watched a husband who is devoted to his wife. I saw a man who serves his family, his church and his Lord with his whole heart, wildly devoted, passionately engaged and fully given over to the mission of Jesus.”

There are some really cool houses in the world. This is one.

Sad news about suicides, and a plea from Kris and me that if you are struggling with this, please speak with someone today: “It has long held true that elderly people have higher suicide rates than the overall population. But numbers released in May by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show a dramatic spike in suicides among middle-aged people, with the highest increases among men in their 50s, whose rate went up by nearly 50 percent to 30 per 100,000; and women in their early 60s, whose rate rose by nearly 60 percent (though it is still relatively low compared with men, at 7 in 100,000). The highest rates were among white and Native American and Alaskan men. In recent years, deaths by suicide has surpassed deaths by motor vehicle crashes. As youths, boomers had higher suicide rates than earlier generations; the confluence of that with the fact that they are now beginning to grow old, when the risk traditionally goes up, has experts worried. The findings suggest that more suicide research and prevention should “address the needs of middle-aged persons,” a CDC statement said.”

Yes, jaw-dropping weapons of destruction from WWII.

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