Daniel is, without question, one of the most difficult books of the Bible. Michael’s decision to move it to the top of the list of his companion guides to scripture will be a great relief to many Bible students who are struggling with the existing material on the book.
The book is like its predecessor: Epic of God. It isn’t a commentary or a quarterly. It’s a companion to help you as you work through the book. It excels in “keeping the main thing the main thing.” He deals with the familiar, tried-and-true Vacation Bible School stories in a way that is fresh. He encourages you to dig beyond the surface. In the latter sections of the book, Whitworth helps us approach apocalyptic literature with the sanity that’s so often missing from treatments of the text.
Derision is highly readable but not “light.” It’s heavily foot-noted and well-sourced. Whitworth interacts with a great number of scholars and shares some of their best pearls of wisdom. He is especially timely in his treatment of responding to persecution or times of God’s perceived silence. In difficult interpretive spots, Whitworth offers several options and suggests the most plausible. He reminds readers not to be unnecessarily dogmatic and to make sure that the forest doesn’t get lost in the trees.
I can absolutely recommend Derision to you as a high-quality guide to Daniel. I hope that it causes a much-neglected book to recapture a place in pulpits, classrooms, and homes. Thank you, Michael!
I’m reading this book called The Invisible Gorilla. That’s a story for another day, but that’s where this came from…
We don’t have a very good grasp on our memory. Most of us know that we forget things, but other than that, we trust our memories. Sciences has proved, time and time again that we’re not quite as reliable as we like to believe.
Here’s a fun little experiment:
Take this list of 15 words. Give yourself about a minute to look over it, read it, and memorize it. There will be a test…
I tried this experiment at Burns. I put the word list on the screen at the beginning of our services, read the list, and explained that there would be a test later.
At the beginning of the sermon, I asked everyone to write down the words from the list. I gave them about one minute to do so.
Once time was up, I asked for a show of hands for who remembered each word. I started with “bed.” About 90% of people raised their hands. (We do best with firsts and lasts, by the way).
I asked how many got the word “rest”. About 75% raised their hands.
I asked how many remembered “awake.” About 50% raised their hands.
I asked how many remembered “sleep.” Again, about half raised their hands.
The only problem? “Sleep” wasn’t on the list, but half our people remembered it vividly.
Our memories aren’t as good as we think they are. We forget things that happened. We remember things not quite as they actually happened. Sometimes we look back on the good ol’ days and only remember the good. (“If only the church could recapture what we had in the 1950’s!”) Sometimes we look at the past and see it all as old and out of date. (“We’re the first ones to discover grace!”)
Neither is entirely accurate!
Let’s be careful about trusting our memories a little too much. No wonder scripture is so filled with activities to remind us of where we are, where we have come from, and where we are going. The past is a beautiful place. The future is an exciting place. But the only place you and I live is the present!
In the preface to Eat This Book, author Eugene Peterson tells of the day his wife picked up their seven-year-old grandson Hans for a trip to the museum. The two of them stopped at the park to eat lunch. As they were about to leave, Hans who had not yet learned to read, took a New Testament from his book bag and held it in front of him and carefully scanned the page.
The incident amused Peterson. But he also saw in it a parable of the way we often approach the Bible: ‘Hans, on that park bench, his eyes moving back and forth across the pages of his Bible, ‘reading’ but not reading, reverent and devout but uncomprehending, honoring in a most precious way this book but without any awareness that it has anything to do with either the lettuce and mayonnaise sandwich he has just eaten or the museum he is about to visit, oblivious to his grandmother next to him: Hans ‘reading’ the Bible. A parable.”
“The Power of Comparison.” Moody Handbook of Preaching.
Why They Left: Listening to Those Who Have Left Churches of Christ by Flavil R. Yeakley Jr.
We all know people who have left our fellowship. Some have left for various denominations; some have abandoned the faith altogether. It is a trend that is at its worst among college aged and twenty-something members. It’s not a unique problem to our fellowship. Others have written about the general disconnect we’ve had with this particular age group. (I recommend You Lost Me by Kinnamon.)
Yeakley writes from many backgrounds. He’s effectively a combination of sociologist/psychologist/stats guy/minister. You can tell that he is a messenger who has been shot plenty of times. I’d guess a full 15% of the book is spent in caveats. I’m pretty sure he says “I’m not advocating doing theology by vote…” at least three times in the book.
We tend to get defensive when we’re faced with unpleasant facts. Doctor, are you calling me fat? Minister, are you saying that I’m failing to reach the young people? How dare you!
I wish that Yeakley would have spent less time trying to convince people that won’t listen that he’s telling the truth. The people who want the disclaimers are seldom satisfied with disclaimers…so don’t feed the trolls! This is really a minor gripe, though. Ignore me and move on…
Yeakley is even-handed when dealing with the issues raised. He recognizes that the individual and the congregation can share blame when someone falls away. He’s not interested in playing a blame game. He is interested in helping you and me make our congregations better places. How can we take away excuses? He helps us to be aware of any stumbling blocks we might be putting in the path for others.
There were two broad categories of reasons people left: the first was neglect, conflict, or misunderstandings. The second was doctrinal disagreements and misunderstandings.
Yeakleys chapters on neglect and fellowship are excellent. He tells some funny stories that hit close to home—one of a church that is ready to disfellowship everyone who hasn’t been around in a few years. The deacon finally asks, “How will they notice?” The elders reverse course—attempt to actually engage in fellowship with these people—and surprise, surprise, they restore almost everyone. It’s a great reminder about the solution to many of our problems.
The doctrinal chapters are well handled, too. He outlines the objections that many have to some of our positions (divorce, evangelism, women, music, etc.). In each chapter, he looks at the complaints about the issue (your church hates women!), looks at the range of teaching in churches of Christ (women can do anything to women can’t do anything), and then usually suggests that most congregations he knows of are doing a better job than his survey would indicate. Unfortunately, my experience has been that many of the churches I’m familiar with have held some of the extreme positions. I hope that’s changing.
Yeakley’s book is worth your time. I’d give it 4 stars. If you’re church leader, it will help you understand what’s going on in the congregation and in the community. It might even make you aware of some ways that you’ve been hurting people even while acting with good intentions. It would be nice if the survey pool were larger and if he spent more time was spent with the data. Yeakley spent a little too much time explaining his doctrinal positions and neglecting the overarching question of “why.”
Logos Bible Software recently provided me with a copy of “Abraham: Following God’s Promise: a Total Church Curriculum” to review. This is a new product offering for them, and a new style of product designed for a whole-church experience. Two similar products have followed, studies of Jacob and Joseph in the same manner.
Here’s the TL;DR version in advance: I love the concept, execution, and content. My main reservation is a question of how this would work in my congregation. I’m not sure I understand how this product fits in with the significant portion of my congregation that doesn’t have a tablet or even a computer. More on that later. If that’s not an issue for your congregation—go for it! The technology is a major component of this product.
First: the content. “Commentary” isn’t the right word for this presentation. “Curriculum” might give you the wrong idea of a Sunday School book that has a two-page lecture and then a dozen questions to answer. I’d label this product a “congregational guide.”
They have included all sorts of tools to help make this as fully integrated as possible for the whole church. There is a sermon “bumper” video, weekly videos to introduce to small groups, outlines, bulletin graphics…pretty much everything you can imagine in terms of in-house promotion and tools, except for a digital deacon dressed up as Abraham inviting people to services.
Another feature I like is the inclusion of magazine-style sidebars or block quotes. These often come in the form of “Quick Bits” and “Quick Tips” that add helpful word study or cultural details. These have the effect of helping us learn to do a better job of Bible study. They really drive the reader towards paying attention to context. That’s great.
There are a few other digital details that are really worth noticing. Any scripture reference in Logos (or Faithlife) is just a click away. How many times have you just skipped right over the references in a book because you were too lazy to look them up? I imagine this new format will cause people to be much more likely to read those cross-references.
The graphics that are included are excellent. They’re in a sort of info-graphic style, similar to the ones offered in the High Definition Commentary series. I think they’re great visualizations of biblical concepts. One of my favorites has Abram taking a step across a bridge made out of the word “Faith.” That really gets the point across!
Logos-backed software also has plenty of opportunity for note-taking. There are blanks for students to fill in their answers, and commonly-highlighted passages are lightly underlined. As a minister, I think it’s helpful to see what is catching people’s attention. Occasionally, it will help you see that people are latching on to only part of a significant idea. It’s a big help.
While I doubt many will use the bibliography (“Further Reading”) at the end of each chapter, for leaders who are preparing, this could be a great resource. These seem geared to helping unpack more difficult ideas in each week’s reading.
Having written all this, it occurs to me that I’ve said very little about the writing and the quality of the commentary itself. That slant alone shows you how much of a game-changer I think this format of a tool could be for churches. (Personal note: I’m dreaming of a day where instead of having “pew Bibles” and hymnals, we’ll have “pew tablets” so that everyone can tap together to material like this!)
The content is appropriate. It is neither dryly academic nor patronizingly popular. It’s written at a simple level, yet difficult concepts are dealt with. The authors seem to have a keen sense for keeping the main application the main thing, sort of in the school of Stanley’s one-point-preaching. They don’t fall into the trap of being simplistic, however. They invite the student into deeper thought and research. The digital tools they provide make that more likely than ever.
Overall, this is a high quality product. I don’t feel that it’s right for complete congregational usage in my particular context. We just have too many people in the rural areas that don’t interact with technology at all. For those who do, however, I think this may be one of the best small-group products developed in my lifetime, and I hope it will cast a shadow over future church curriculums for a long time to come.
I’m late to the game on this book. I stole it in a preachers’ Dirty Santa Gift Exchange in 2011. I finally got to dig into the book a few weeks ago.
Hendricks offers seven “laws” of teaching in a helpful acrostic: teacher.
The Law of the Teacher: If you stop growing today, you stop teaching [effectively] tomorrow.
The Law of Education: How people learn must determine how you teach.
The Law of Activity: Maximum learning is always the result of maximum involvement.
The Law of Communication: To truly impart information requires the building of bridges.
The Law of the Heart: Teaching that impacts is not head to head, but heart to heart.
The Law of Encouragement: Teaching tends to be most effective when the learner is properly motivated.
The Law of Readiness: The teaching-learning process will be most effective when both student and teacher are adequately prepared.
Hendricks challenges you to consider how you could improve in each of these areas. As a teacher, challenge yourself to continuously refill and refuel. Make sure that you’re thinking about the people you’re working with—and not just imagining clones of yourself. Give people an opportunity to prepare and to invest. That investment will pay off in the end.
The book is short and quick—less than 150 pages. I’d recommend a copy for every teacher in your organization!
If you’d like to see the video lectures on which the book was based, you can watch them here:
Or if you’d like to see a slideshow presentation overviewing some key concepts, here’s one I found online for your viewing pleasure:
Here’s a great clip on YouTube that shares a fairly accurate version of Martin Luther’s “Here I Stand” speech at Worms, along with some introductory comments and Luther’s prayer before the council.
We’re beginning a new class at Burns on the history of Christianity.
Our first week’s assignment is — as scholarly as this sounds — read the wikipedia page on Christian History. Jot down some notes as to things that stood out to you, surprised you, confused you, angered you, or that were just new to you. We’ll look at some of those as we begin class next week!
It was hard to leave the Holiday Inn Express, but it was time to head home. Goldwings never looked as good as they did that morning with their fancy-shmancy seats.
We had an unexpected problem on Friday. The storm system that blew through during the night actually took the temperature from the mid-90’s to the mid-60’s. All of my gear was mesh for hot weather, so I spent a fair bit of Friday pretty cold. It’s funny how big of a difference that 30 degrees make! Miserably hot to uncomfortably cold on a motorcycle!
The Last Supper….or Lunch? Soda Pop Junction
We took I-65 north for a while, then US-31, then back to I-65 to shake things up a bit. Really good riding through this part of Alabama. The reason is clear: we’re getting closer to Tennessee! Bailed on I-65 for good right across the TN state line and had a good lunch stop at the Soda Pop Junction in Lynville, TN. North to Columbia for fuel—and we parted ways in Dickson.
After a shower and a nap—it was time to close the trip out at Carl’s.
Day 6: 243 miles. Cumulative: 1,473.
Concluding Thoughts
This little excursion was far better than I hoped or imagined. Matt and I had both wanted to ride the whole trace ever since we started (and finished) or little business project, RidetheTrace.com. Everything else was just sort of an added thought. When we realized we had a holiday to work with that bought us another day, we kept adding things…and the trip was born!
The Natchez Trace Parkway did not disappoint. Quality ride. It’s nothing exciting, but it is a good ride. New Orleans and the coast were great, too. Alabama coming back home was a necessary evil.
A hammock for camping was actually almost an impulse-item for me during my last-minute wal-mart run. It worked so well, I never once set up the tent. Leslie and I are planning a trip later in North Carolina, and we’re thinking of going the hammock route. Sleep was comfortable, it didn’t matter if the ground wasn’t perfectly level, and it is way easier to set up and take down than a tent will ever be. The size difference for packing is pretty incredible, too.
I’d never done anything like this trip. I don’t do a whole lot of camping or a whole lot of distance riding—but I’m really glad I did. Definitely a bucket-list trip worth taking! Plus, who else can make it that far on less than 30 gallons of gas? That’s the fun of the bike!
The only question that remains: for Hat and Fappy II: do we make the cannon ball run?
I forgot to mention earlier, but sometime during the day yesterday, Matt’s bike battery gave up the ghost. We tried pulling the headlight fuse and disconnecting accessories, but with no success. As a result, at every stop, Matt is getting in a nice little sprint or two for a kick-start. For the record, Matt learned that it’s a good idea to make sure you’re not in 5th gear when kick starting. It really isn’t fun to stall the bike when you’re kick-starting it.
I can has?
First stop of the day was Pensacola Naval Air Station for the Naval Air Museum. The MP at the gate made me switch into full-finger gloves. They’re serious about the base rules for cyclists. It was a really good museum. We didn’t do any of the guided tours or movies or anything, but we really enjoyed it. The restaurant was even decent and reasonably priced.
As we ate lunch, we were considering the many, many hot miles that were between us and sleeping in our own beds. Lots of great ideas appeared during lunch. We could sell the bikes and trade them for jet skis and ride the Mississippi back home. We could buy two jet skis and straddle the bikes on the jet skis… We could rent a truck… We could hijack a cargo plane… It’s a shame the pilots all looked bigger than us!
Looks like I landed this one…
Let’s just say it was hard to leave the comfortable air conditioned seats of the museum to start driving north, but we did it.
We drove through a bunch of fresh construction. New blacktop is really hot on a hot summer afternoon! We took interstate for a good section of this trip just to avoid stop-and-go and to try to make up some time, because this was going to be the least pleasant leg of the trip.
My turn to catch Matt looking derpy. I think this is the point that we realized the Facebook post saying, “Dead battery, camping, my butt hurts” sounded kind of funny…
With stops about every fifty miles for either fuel or ice cream, we made pretty good time. GPS gave us a rolling average of 61mph, which really isn’t bad. We didn’t have bad experiences with many crazies on four wheels. We had our first encounters with rain on this segment of the trip. We mostly had a little bit of drizzle and overcast….not enough water to soak through the gear, but enough to take the edge off the heat. Very nice.
We made it to Alabaster, AL (just south of Birmingham) for dinner. GPS led us astray there trying to find a Mexican place. Eventually we gave up and asked a lawn crew where to find it. (No stereotyping there!)
We used hotwire there to find a hotel on the north side of Huntsville. We ended up at the Rime Garden Inn. For the record, I-59/I-20 heading to the Birmingham airport was the worst road we rode, and it only foreshadowed this awesome “hotel.”
Let me just share my tripadvisor review for your enjoyment:
“Worth losing money not to stay here”
1 of 5 stars Reviewed June 15, 2012
Got a deal on this with one of the travel sites. Didn’t last an hour. The hotel down the road was worth every penny to live through the night!
Highlights:
The hotel is actually a converted apartment complex. “Converted” is used loosely. The rooms surrounding our second room were still apartments.
By apartments, I mean projects.
The first room we were given was already occupied. By a man who had been there a week. Whoopsie!
The second room we were given was already occupied….by some sorts of horrible creatures. The “neighbors” (the guys partying at 5) warned of bedbugs on the scary-stained couch. The mold in the bathroom was nice, too.
The second room included an one A/C unit….for the whole apartment. They solved that little problem by cutting a whole in the wall and putting a rectangular tube to funnel some of the air into the bedroom.
The second room didn’t include a smoke detector in the bedroom….but you could see where it used to be!
The carpet was coming up at the thresholds, so you could see the edge of the tack strip.
The cop patrolling the parking lot, the groups of people standing and staring on the side of the road all combined to make this a place I wasn’t too interested in staying.
Dirty, disorganized, and a disaster waiting to happen. I give this place a D!
Room Tip: Choose one at another hotel.
Update: The manager wrote back and disputed my review. It was total garbage and hilarious.
The beautiful multi-room air-conditioning unit. This was just a little thing, but was kind of the icing on the cake…
So yeah, it was pretty awesome. The forty five minutes that the bike spent parked here was the only time on the trip—including New Orleans—that either of us felt compelled to use our disc locks to keep things safe. I nearly didn’t take my helmet off to go inside.
We decided it was worth losing money to move down to the Holiday Inn Express that night. It was so beautiful, clean, and safe, that I nearly hugged the desk clerk. Matt said it was a beautiful beacon on the hill. Enjoyed the pool and met some nice folks, parked with a bunch of nice bikes, and generally felt like we weren’t going to die.
I’m reading this book called The Invisible Gorilla. That’s a story for another day, but that’s where this came from…
Why They Left: Listening to Those Who Have Left Churches of Christ by Flavil R. Yeakley Jr.
