Tithing is a tricky thing.  If a church pastor preaches a sermon on tithing, he will be accused of being interested only in money.  The pastor’s salary (minister, priest, etc) is probably set in the church budget.  It’s not like if the church has a good day at the offering plate, he’s going out to Golden Corral after the service.  But try to teach on the subject of tithing if you don’t believe me, and see if  words like meddling or greedy aren’t tossed around freely.

The issue I wish to address here is the practice many Christians have of tithing exactly ten percent of each dollar earned.  I mean to respond to questions such as:

• Is tithing an Old Testament command?
• Are Christians required to tithe?
• Does Jesus demand a tithe?
• How much should one tithe, if anything?

The most commonly accepted tithe to make is ten percent, as mentioned earlier.  It is easy to find ten percent tithers in the Old Testament, even before the Law is given at Mount Sinai.  Abraham gave the priest Melchizedek such a tithe, long before there even was a Moses.  Many site Leviticus 27:30, and sometimes verses following, as the basis for a ten percent tithe.  There are offering envelopes with this verse printed on them, that read “a tenth… holy unto the LORD.”  Well, that’s sort of what that verse says.  It says any tithe given will be holy unto the LORD, but does not specify ten percent.  And the ten percent tithe in the Law was only one tithe; there were also taxes collected, free-will offerings, and special collections taken up to do the religious and civil work of the Hebrew kingdom.  Even in the Old Testament, it’s complicated.  It gets even more so in the New.

In the New Testament, we read that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets.  We live under grace, and not old covenant legality.  One could argue the civil law is still in effect, but the religious codes, the food laws, those were specific to the nation of Israel.  So, on that basis alone, one could argue that tithing is not required.  Tithing was a law, we are not under the Law.

But the church now, as before, is required to do certain things, like care for widows and orphans.  The New Testament is clear about supporting your clergy as well; and missionaries.  Without financial support, your local church could not even keep the lights on, much less fulfill the Great Commission.  When it comes to our finances in the New Testament, the “ten percent” rule might actually be holding us back.  Rather than ten percent being required, we find verses like Acts 11:29, where each gave according to his ability.  Some of us are able to give far beyond ten percent.  2 Corinthians 9:6 says we should give willingly, v. 7 even telling us that “God loves a cheerful giver.”

I assure you that if you have been regularly practicing tithing ten percent, your church (and pastor) appreciate it.  Tithing is Old Testament Law; we should be offering or giving to the church.  And even if we give ten percent, we still must honor God with the other 90.  What Jesus requires is much greater than ten percent of what we have; he requires the whole thing, and not just our money.  As Paul reminded the Corinthians, we are no longer our own but have been bought with a price. Our tithes, offerings and gifts (including time and talent) belong to God; and he is worthy to receive them.

Just like the Internet Monk rants here, I was raised in a fundamentalist Baptist home.  We read the King James Bible, went to Sunday School, prayer meeting, revival, and every other time the church door was open.  We didn’t wear shorts at my childhood home, nor go swimming in mixed company.  My dad went to the public school and had me excused from the two weeks of swimming our P.E. class had in August.  Dad was a street preacher, standing on the corner of a downtown city block shouting the Gospel at passing traffic.  (He still does that once a week, but I no longer hand out tracts to pedestrian passersby.) 

But you know what my parents did let us do?  Go trick-or-treating.  I dressed up for school on Halloween all the way through 6th grade.  I remember going to at least one church sponsored haunted house.  Other church members handed out candy.  And I remember well the day that Halloween was taken away from us.  I was about 11 or 12, and don’t remember everything said in the sermon that night, but one point was how that putting a jack-o-lantern on your front porch was a sign that you had sold your daughter to Satan.  The “Halloween is the Devil” sermon was an eye-opening experience for my parents, and marked the death of it’s celebration in our home.

Yes, there are pagan festival roots to the celebration of Halloween.  Most of those roots are either barely or in fact no longer visible in our Americanized children’s version of the day.  Let me ask you this: every struggle with a child’s question about what hiding eggs has to do with Jesus?  How do you deal with “Was Jesus birthday December 25th?”  If you’re tossing Halloween and all things pagan from your house, Easter and Christmas are gonna’ have to go as well.

The changing of seasons and phases of the moon have always had significance in pagan belief and practice.  Each spring as the world reawakened, pagan worshipers observed a feast for Beltane.  Springtime is all about fertility, and new life, and… you don’t want me to go into it here.  That’s what the eggs are about.  In simplest terms, the early Christians were well aware that a big party was going on that they were not allowed to participate in.  So rather than worship Beltane, they decided to have their own celebration – scheduled to coincide with the Beltane rituals – and make it about Jesus.  That’s why our celebration of Easter is all mixed up between sermons of resurrection and the coloring and hiding of eggs.  “We” took a pagan holiday and Christianized it; we stole Easter from pagans.

The same with Christmas.  Why is it on December 25th?  The dates for Easter and Christmas were set long ago, well before the Protestant Reformation by the Catholic Church.  That ought to be enough to send fundamentalists over the edge, who don’t believe Christians existed prior to Protestantism and that the Bible was written in 1611.  The first day of winter, just like spring, was a significant marker on the pagan calendar.  I’m going to close with a passage of scripture from Jeremiah 10.  My dad quoted this each year when we asked about a Christmas tree.  Like the holiday itself, we Christianized the tree.

Thus says the Lord:

“Learn not the way of the nations,*
nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens
because the nations are dismayed at them,
for the customs of the peoples are vanity. 
A tree from the forest is cut down
and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman.
They decorate it with silver and gold;
they fasten it with hammer and nails
so that it cannot move.  -Jer 10:2-4

*KJV says “way of the heathen”

As Jesus finishes the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7) he offers some practical advice concerning his teachings.  He says that anyone who hears his words and does them is like a wise man that built his house on a rock.  Do we all know what happens next?  The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew, but the house did not move.  To not heed the word of Jesus is to be the foolish man who build his house on the sand; great was the fall of it. 

The warning is very clear.  As Jesus comes to the end of his message, he implores his listeners to put the teachings into practice.  He advocates using these specific teachings (including the Model Prayer and Golden Rule) as a foundation on which to build.  If you start with an iffy foundation, it doesn’t matter how well built the rest of your project is.  Just look at the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  So it is with constructing our spiritual building.  In John MacArthur’s commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, he says that the Beatitudes are a future promise to the one who lives righteously.  The rest of the passage is about just how to do that.  So then, Jesus makes a promise, gives instruction on how to obtain it, and reminds us at the end that we had better have been listening.  His closing remarks are another way of saying to be doers of the word, not hearers only.

Notice the parallels that Peter makes in 1 Peter 2.  He includes two quotes from Isaiah and one from the Psalms, all of them about God laying a foundation in Zion and choosing a precious stone that the builders rejected.  Peter makes it clear that Jesus is the precious stone of God’s choosing, a sure foundation, and that the Jewish leaders rejected him as they were destined to do.  But for those of us who believe, we are putting up spiritual buildings on the same precious and sure foundation.  We are building the Kingdom, and Jesus is the cornerstone on which it all rests. 

Follow me here.  In Matthew 7, Jesus is advising his followers to heed his message for their own sake.  To receive the promise of the Beatitudes, to ensure a personal place in the kingdom on the day of judgement, we must hear and practice his teachings.  Peter, in the age of grace and writing to the Church, is talking about building the kingdom.  Jesus, during his earthly ministry, is speaking to the individual.  Peter is talking about how each individual is building the body of Christ and doing the work of the coming Kingdom.  

Today we continue to labor toward that kingdom made up of every tribe, every tongue and every nation.  That’s the “Israel of God” that Paul mentions in Galatians 6, not a political nation but God’s spiritual promise to Abraham.  That sounds like a whole other post.

I was warned when I started blogging about writing posts that were too long.  Shorter posts stand a better chance of being read.  Well, I’ve recently been trying to get our youth involved in some online discussion on their Facebook page.  I tossed out what I hope will be conversation starters, and realize that I don’t have to say everything I know in order for a post to be good.  Here’s an example, titled Jesus Read the Bible and Prayed:

We know from the New Testament that Jesus was frequently found in the temple and synagogue reading the Hebrew scrolls. He is the Word of God, and he also read the Word of God. Jesus also spent serious time in prayer. Not just reciting the Lord’s Prayer, but we might say Jesus was hardcore in his prayer time. He often got up well before sunrise to pray, and on occasion prayed all night ’till sunrise. In Gethsemane, he prayed until Luke says his sweat was like great drops of blood.

Sometimes we get the mistaken notion that the closer we get to God, the less we need to pray. The opposite seems to be true; you can’t get closer than Jesus.

There was a time I wondered why so much emphasis was placed on the resurrection.  Jesus died on the cross as the all-sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the world.  Even if there had been no resurrection, his sacrificial death would have brought salvation; what could be more important than that? 

The blood of Jesus was a more excellent sacrifice than that of bulls, sheep and birds.  His death on the cross brought an end to the temple sacrifice system.  The entire Gospel pivots around the cross.  It is the universal symbol of Christianity.  But the implications of resurrection are equally powerful, a fact that I can now appreciate as well.  To the world, the cross looks like defeat.  Perhaps Satan thought he had won; the Pharisees and Jewish Sanhedrin did.  Jesus himself had said, though, that no man could take his life from him.  He was laying it down, and had the power to take it up again.  In light of the resurrection, the cross is not an end, but a beginning.  In light of the resurrection, the cross became his greatest victory. 

Paul said that if he had hope in this life only, he would be above all men most miserable.  In Galatians 2, he talks about being crucified with Christ.  In chapter 6, he reiterates that he is crucified to the world and the world to him.  In a similar passage (Rom 6:4) Paul says that we are buried with Christ in baptism so that like him we will be raised.  So then, we as Christians have been crucified with Christ by dying to this world and living for the things of the Kingdom.  We crucify the desires of this flesh, in order to walk in what Paul described as “newness of life.”  And at Christ’s appearing, we will be raised with him.  This life is temporary and fleeting, like grass in the sun, but our life with Jesus will be eternal.  Jesus has defeated death, hell and the grave. 

In the meantime, as we are pilgrims and strangers in this world, Jesus serves as our great High Priest.  Hebrews is filled with this imagery.  Not only is the blood a Jesus a better sacrifice, Jesus himself is a more excellent high priest.  He has no sins of his own to be forgiven of, and he constantly makes intercession on our behalf, going directly into the presence of God.  He was raised from the dead, and now ever lives to make intercession. 

Jesus death and resurrection were the plan of God for salvation before the world began.  Jesus had the power to lay down his life and also to take it up again.  He has defeated death, hell and the grave, and now sits at the Father’s right hand, ever living to make intercession.  He will one day return, at the Father’s command, to bring his children home.  He will also deliver the final blow to Satan himself, as he alone holds the key to the fiery pit.  The importance of the resurrection is found in the fact that he is the author of life and more powerful than death.  We have no reason to fear the one that can kill the body, but  rather the one who can destroy the body and soul. 

“Death is swallowed up in victory.  O death, where is your victory?  O death, where is your sting?”  1 Cor 15:54-55

Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. 

Those are the words of Jesus in Matt 5:44.  The entire sermon on the mount can be read in Matt 5-7, but let’s deal right now with just this one command.  Like everything Jesus taught, he not only gave the instruction but provided us with his example to follow.  Jesus loved his enemies. 

1. John 3   Nicodemus, one of the Pharisees and a ruler of the Jews, came to Jesus by night.  The Pharisees are generally considered to be the enemies of Jesus.  Thanks to the teaching of one Michael Spencer, I no longer think of the Pharisees as the bad guys in the Gospel story.  They were seriously committed to following the Law, and getting other Jews to do the same.  They wanted to prove to God they were serious about keeping those commands and being His people.  Nevertheless, they often went about things the wrong way, and many times Jesus declares woe unto them.  It is the Pharisees who would conspire against Jesus at his arrest and trial, and even in Matthew 5 he says that “your righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees.” 

John 3 is not about the Pharisees, though, it is about one particular Pharisee.  There is a difference.  Nicodemus sincerely came to Jesus with honest questions, and Jesus has a long conversation with him, answering his questions and sharing the Gospel.  John 3:16 is the most well known verse of the Bible period, and where is it found?  In this dialogue between Jesus and a Pharisee.  Even though Nicodemus would eventually publicly identify himself with Jesus and his followers (after the crucifixion, he helps carry away the body) at this point of the story he comes under the veil of darkness.  He has questions, and even calls Jesus rabbi, but doesn’t want to be seen meeting with him.  Even though the Pharisees are Jesus’ most vocal and active critics, he takes time to share the Gospel with this one. 

2. Luke 10:25-37   In the parable of the good Samaritan, a Jewish man has been left for dead on the side of the road.  One of his own kind, a priest even, simply stepped to the other side of the road and passed by.  Imagine your church pastor doing that!  A Levite later does the same.  The men in the tribe of Levi were the keepers of the tabernacle/Temple, so it would be to us like a church deacon, elder or presbyter.  Finally, it is a Samaritan who gives the man aid.  Samaritans were black sheep of the Jewish faith.  Think of it as something akin to a church split, and half the congregation pulls out.  Jews and Samaritans didn’t speak to each other, do business, worship in the same place, etc.  Now this was a parable; Jesus told this little story in response the question “Who is my neighbor?”  He had just finished sharing the two greatest commandments – love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and also love your neighbor as yourself – when he was asked to explain just who one’s neighbor is.  Some clever person in the audience was looking for a way out of loving everybody.  He wanted a shortcut.  He didn’t get one from Jesus.  Whoever happens to need you, that’s your neighbor.  Now, Jesus could talk the talk, but did he walk the walk? 

In John 4, Jesus and his disciples are passing through Samaria.  Jesus sits alone by a well while the others go to find food.  Along comes a Samaritan woman; not just any woman, but one that has to come to the well by herself.  She has a certain reputation, and the other women of this village do not associate with her.  She has had 5 husbands, Jesus later tells her, and now lives with a man who is not her husbands.  This woman was not a good Samaritan.  Not only does Jesus talk to a woman (which a good Jewish man would not have done), it is a Samaritan woman.  And a disreputable one at that.  He talks to her, gives her comfort, and shares the Gospel.  Jews and Samaritans were enemies; he was supposed to hate her. 

3. Luke 23:24   Jesus was hung on the cross by the Romans, at the insistence of an angry mob, after a false trial by the Jewish Sanhedrin (leaders).  As he hangs on the cross to die, he prays for the people who are killing him.  “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  Jesus loved his enemies; and even as he hung on the cross, prayed for those that persecuted him.  He lived out, even with his dying breath, the perfect example of his teaching.  The Bible tells us that seldom will a man die for his friends, but that Christ loved us and died while we were still sinners. 

A couple of years ago, national attention was given to a school shooting.  This shooting was not in Chicago or Las Angeles, but in Amish country.  A gunman entered an Amish schoolhouse and started shooting, eventually taking his own life.  The Amish community extended forgiveness, even inviting the family members of the shooter to attend the funeral of his victims.  The Amish are usually in the background of American society; they have no t.v. preachers, they certainly aren’t blogging!  They are usually easy to ignore.  But in this case, it seemed like the whole country – perhaps the whole world- was paying attention.  Why?  Because they lived out in a very real way Jesus’ commandment to love.  When we do that, the way that Jesus did, it is impossible to ignore.

In Mark chp 4, one of the parables Jesus shares is the Parable of the Sower.  If you didn’t just click the link to Mark 4, it may be that you know this parable well.  I hope you either know this story already, or at least take the time to read it now.  After telling this particular parable, Jesus goes on to explain its meaning.  The seed is the gospel, and what happens illustrates many things that could happen to those who hear the gospel shared.  What I want to foucs on for a moment is exactly what Jesus meant by “went out to sow.”

The picture above shows how most fields were sown with seed for thousands of years.  This farmer, as they did during Medieval times, and as they did during the first century, is taking handfuls of seed and just flinging them.  With no machinery and many acres of land to work, this method may be wasteful but is the only hope the farmer has in getting the job done.  If he took one seed at a time, the way you or I might in a small garden, and placed it gently into the soil one or two inches before moving on the next seed, he would still be planting in October when the ground froze.  He’s wasting a lot of seed; this “broadcast method” of sowing seeds is inefficient in terms of how much seed is used per acre, but absolutely necessary if one ever intends to finish.  The seed must be sown during the window of opportunity.  This is the kind of sowing Jesus was talking about, the only kind his audience had ever known.

Later, thanks to the industrial revolution, we could afford to be much more deliberate with our sowing.  Jethro Tull’s seed drill, for instance, simply needed a goat or mule to pull it, and it precisely deposited one seed ever 12 – 18 inches, planting each one an inch or two into the soil.  You had to buy the machine, but it paid for itself in that amount of seed it would save over it’s lifetime.  No more tossing out your crop as bird seed.

How deliberately precise are we about when and where to share the gospel? The gospel is free, and there should be no concern about wasting it.  Consider a few examples: a teen spends a summer raising support to go on a mission trip.  This church youth might spend weeks raising funds and promoting their trip.  They buy a passport, airline ticket, luggage, and then fly around the world.  Now, the work being done may be important.  Perhaps they help a missionary dig a well, or aide in handing out vaccines.  They read to third world children and share the gospel for one week.  But look at all the strategic planning that went into this effort.  Weeks of time and energy – and thousands of dollars – were spent to make just a few personal encounters possible.  We could bring the examples home by analyzing our own church services, or perhaps personal evangelism outside of the church.

In Jesus’ Parable of the Sower, seeds are being flung in every direction.  The sower trusts that God will allow some of them to grow.  How often do we rely on our methods to ensure growth?  Paul said that one plants, another waters, and God gives the increase.  We need to fling the gospel, as often as we possibly can in every direction.  The Good News cannot be wasted; it was freely given to us, and so is the command to freely give to others.  Carefully planning for weeks on end to strategically place a few gospel words in not what Jesus had in mind.

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—  for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.  Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.  And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.  For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.  -Romans 5: 12-17

In some ways, Jesus is like Adam.  By one man’s transgression, sin entered the world.  And by one man’s righteousness, victory over sin entered the world.  Adam and Jesus are alike in that both are a type of “first man.”  At the same time, they are total opposites if you think about it.  Adam was the first man to sin; Jesus was the first man to live without sin. 

In some ways, Jesus is like Moses.  Moses led God’s chosen people out of slavery, and into the promised land.  When God’s anger would have wiped the people out of existence, Moses stood between them and God.  He reminded God of his promise to do good.  Like Moses, Jesus stands between us and God’s righteous wrath.

In some ways, Jesus is like David.  David was a man after God’s own heart.  He was the King of Israel that all other kings would be measured by.  He was also a warrior, concurring his enemies and expanding the kingdom. 

In some ways, Jesus was more like Solomon.  King Solomon ruled during a time of peace.  He built God’s temple in Jerusalem, which David could not do because he had shed much blood.  Solomon is still remembered for his wisdom. 

In some ways, Jesus is like John the Baptist.  All of the people of Israel came out to John, who was preaching a message of repentance.  After being baptized by John, the first message Jesus preached (Mark 1) was to repent and believe the Gospel. 

In some ways, Jesus is like every one of us.  He was a human being, born as a baby to earthly parents.  He ate food when he was hungry, drank water when thirsty, and was tempted as we are.  He knew the pain of betrayal, and even suffered, bled and died. 

On one hand, Jesus was like Adam; and Moses, David, Solomon, John the Baptist, and in a general sense, each of us.  But on the other hand… Jesus is God.  He is the most unique of every religious leader.  He is like a high priest, but has no sins of his own for which to ask forgiveness.  He died and was laid in a tomb; but has now risen and lives forevermore.  Death and the grave have been defeated.  He did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasp (Phil. 2) but took the form of a servant; a servant obedient to death, even death on a cross.  No one has ever gone farther to bring home the sinful, the undeserving, the cursed or the wicked.  He is the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep.  He has become the firstborn of a large family, an adopted family, that will share his inheritance. 

We use simile and metaphor in a attempt to wrap our brains around who Jesus is and what he like.  It is so difficult to do because there has never been and never will be another like him.  He is the embodiment of a loving God that we cannot understand.  His infinite love makes him unlike anything the world has ever seen.  If we could just understand that.

I know I haven’t been blogging much lately.  If you somehow missed it, my wife had a baby about two weeks ago.  My mom was here two weeks, my in-laws are still here, a new school year started; it’s been a hoot.

Look for these posts to come soon:  On the Other Hand.  This is the sermon I preached last Sunday morning.  On the one hand, Jesus was a lot like Adam; and Moses, and David, and John the Baptist.  On the other hand, Jesus was God.

This morning I’m preaching on Abraham being the first man of faith.  Before there was Moses, Aaron, the temple or the Law, Abram was blessed by Melchizedek and gave a 10% tithe.  And then 3,000 years before Jesus was crucified, his faith was counted as righteousness.  Abraham was way ahead of the curve.

This post is very personal and way too long; but  I feel it’s a story that must be told.

You don’t hear about it much anymore, but during the 70’s a concept known as equal time or equal opportunity was hotly debated.  Television stations had to provide an equal amount of broadcasting time for both sides of a political issue.  1959 and 1971 are banner years regarding amendments and exemptions to the Congressional Act if you get really interested.  I just wanted everyone to remember there was such a thing. 

For a number of years, it didn’t look like my wife and I would be having any children.  We were married in 1997; in 2002 she tested positive for the first time on a pregnancy test.  We laughed, we cried, then we called everybody we knew.  We started picking out names, and one person wanted to be the first to give the baby a gift.  Then around 12 weeks or so we made a trip to the emergency room, and found out the she had already miscarried.  The event was traumatic; much worse than never becoming pregnant at all.

We began to learn the value of a support network.  Lots of people were very thoughtful and considerate; Jerry and Renae Brooks especially come to mind.  When Teresa became pregnant again in 2004, we were very selective with how we disseminated information.  Fearing the worst, we got in to see a doctor very early.  This time we found out that at 9 weeks the pregnancy was already deteriorating.  A scheduled D & C was much less overwhelming than the spontaneous abortion had been (the clinical term for miscarriage).  A series of tests did not provide any answers as to why the two miscarriages, nor why it was so difficult to become pregnant in the first place. 

So what’s with the equal time bit?  Well my wife and I are full time in ministry.  At a small Christian boarding school, we basically raise other people’s kids.  My degree is in History, but I also certified to teach in the public school system.  I studied Educational Psychology, Developmental Psychology, and did the whole student-teaching thing.  So in addition to our questions and frustrations about not having children, possibly ever, at times it was tempting to question our profession.  We both agreed that we were called into this ministry, but all things considered it was tough sometimes.

When we found out last December that Teresa was pregnant again, we were cautiously optimistic.  Her doctor had been treating her PCOS for two years; would that be enough to make a difference?  The ultrasound revealed a seemingly healthy baby early on, but also showed a fibroid in the uterus as well.  The birth of a child is always miraculous; all things considered, I believe our case was even more so.  Johannah Lorelai was born on August 11, which just happens to be Teresa’s birthday as well.  The un-planned C-section was complicated by the fibroid, but when all was said and done we had a 7 pound 3 ounce baby girl. 

There were times we questioned God’s plan.  Here we were devoting our lives to education and ministry, and it looked like we would never be raising a child of our own.  We lamented the exorbitant costs involved with adoption.  Admittedly, there were some times we shed tears and wondered what we had ever done for God to punish us this way.  So it seems to me equal time is in order.  As we rejoice in the “new addition” to our family, we need to thank God at least as many times as we questioned him.  We need to shed at least as many tears of joy as we did of sorrow.  It’s not enough to nod our heads and agree that God is good; we must go at least as far – if not farther – to spread the news about his goodness as we did when our friends helped bare our grief. 

“The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord.”  Those are words of truth spoken by Job that illustrate the omnipotence of God.  The whole of creation is his to do with as he pleases.  The words are true, but do not offer comfort.  We live in a flawed world, once perfect but affected by sin and the curse.  The rain falls on the just and the unjust; God offers grace that makes life here tolerable, even joyous at times.  It would be fair for God to let us burn in hell; anything else is more than fair.  Marriage was ordained by God, although the institution today is not held in as high regard as it once was.  Teresa and I are fortunate in that 1) we have been happily married these past 12 years, and 2) our parents gave us good models to follow.  Hers have been married for over 30 years, mine for nearly 50.  Having this child is blessing on top of blessings.  Blessed be the name of the Lord indeed.