Another National Title for BAMA

Jan 9

Posted by Mike Stallard in Sports | No Comments

“We won!” — as if I had anything to do with it, other than my strong wishes and yelling at the television.  I “feel” like I had some impact.  But if they lose, “they” lost it.  Alabama, my team, on January 7 won the national college football title casting away past demons of loss to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, a team with a great heritage.  The score of 42 to 14 was surprising at least to me.  I expected something like 21 to 17 or 17 to 13.  It caught a lot of people by surprise.

At my house, we had about 18 people, family and good friends, who all rooted for Alabama.  But the main thing was using the game as a time for a party.  Everyone there was a Christian.  Before the game, we prayed a blessing on the great food spread and asked God’s favor for our fellowship.  And if our team had lost, we would have been extremely disappointed…BUT we would not have pouted long. Football is a game.  I know it is big business, even at the college level.  But there are things in life a lot more important than football.  Football can give discipline to the players.  It can keep them off the streets and maybe keep some fans off the streets.  The hold of football on our culture, however, seems to be something deeply ingrained in us.  It holds great attraction and at times can distract us from other things.  We must be careful not to let it consume us while we partake of the joy that it brings, a joy that nonetheless can never match the joy of knowing and serving Christ, who died to take away our sins.

Glory to God in the Highest

Jan 2

Posted by Mike Stallard in Christmas, Family | 1 Comment

Here is a picture taken at my home a couple of days after Christmas.  My son David and his family (wife Brielle and daughter Ella) came up on Dec 27 to spend some time with my wife Cindy and I and others who had gathered.  Here I am reading the Christmas story from Luke 2 for my extended family.  Sitting next to me helping me hold the Bible is my two-year old granddaughter Ella.  Such moments are beyond special.  Ella is about the age that the oldest of the little boys in Bethlehem were when Herod’s evil henchmen came to destroy their lives.  But Jesus escaped, having gone down to Egypt.  Later he escaped the hold of death in the grave on Resurrection Day.  He came into the world as a babe, left as a glorified and resurrected Savior, and is returning as a Warrior Lamb to make all things right.  It is such truth that makes moments with my granddaughter as I read the Bible really special.  Glory to God in the Highest.

Frigid Winter Has Arrived

Jan 1

Posted by Mike Stallard in Weather | No Comments

Many here in northeast Pennsylvania say they are happy to have four seasons of weather and would not want things to be like the South where I originally come from (Alabama).   When it snowed during my childhood, it was nice, but it was nicer that it would go away in just a few days!!  Here in northeast Pennsylvania, the snow comes and often stays on the ground for several months.  The temperature stays at or below freezing enough to make this happen.   I prefer it warmer so I have said that snow looks pretty on a postcard, not in real life.  So I have provided a winter freeze picture of ice on the rhododendrons just off the front porch of my house — taken a couple of days ago.

A Special Christmas Gift

Dec 30

Posted by Mike Stallard in Christmas, Family | No Comments

Just a few days before Christmas Day, my nephew Stephen Stallard and his wife Sonya had their first child.  They named her Malia.  This makes me a Great Uncle for the first time!  What a special Christmas gift!!!  Thank you Stephen and Sonya!  Of course, chief thanksgiving goes to the Lord, the giver of life.  I had a chance to hold her in the hospital.  I have provided a picture of her which I believe my niece Rebekah took.  Nothing as precious as a little one.  May God guide her every step.  Our family has already begun to pray for her, not just her health as she begins life, but her spiritual development as well.  May she come to know the Lord at an early age.

 

More Christmas Memories with Google’s Help

Dec 25

Posted by Mike Stallard in New Covenant | No Comments

Yesterday (Christmas Eve 2012), I spent most of the day using Google Maps and Google Earth to find all of the places that my parents and I have lived.  The project is still ongoing.  However, I made a lot of progress and learned how better to use the tools that Google gives in this area.  I also looked for the special house of my grandparents Hillis and Cora Stallard (both in heaven now).  They lived in the mountains in southwestern Virginia northwest of Bristol.  I followed Google street level along highway 652 through the mountains back and forth for almost two hours and finally found their home.   See the picture of it here:

My grandparents ran a small two-room grocery store which was located on this side of that first building which is a car gargage.   The store is no longer there.  Their house is up on the hill in the background.  I have a lot of good memories of that  house.  But I have more good memories of my grandparents.  They are in heaven today because they had embraced Jesus, the one whom God had sent into the world (His Son) to die for our sins.  I will hug their necks again after the resurrection to come.

More Christmas Memories

Dec 25

Posted by Mike Stallard in Christmas | No Comments

In my last entry, I talked about Christmas memories and answered four questions about Christmas.  Here are some more to add to the list.  Some in my last post were personal.  Here I give historical and ethical questions with potential ways to answer:

1.  Who is the historical person behind our modern notions of Santa Claus?

There are many historical strands that go into our modern invention of the character of Santa Claus.  I once did a study of these historical threads and found it quite facinating.  One of the pagan pictures that interject into our modern portrait is the false Norse god Odin.  Note the table of comparison below:

Saint Nicholas Norse god Odin
Long beard Long beard
Rides in a sleigh driven by reindeer flying in the sky Rides a white horse in the sky
Children have stockings by fireplace and leave food for Santa Claus Children would place boots by the fireplace with food for Odin’s horse
Santa leaves gifts for children by fireplace Odin would replace the food with gifts or candy

However, the one strand that I passed on most strongly to my children when they were growing up was the Christian personage of St. Nick or St. Nicholas, the fourth century Church Father who, according to some Christian traditions and/or legends, attended Nicea and supported the orthodox trinitarian formulation over against the Arians.  One can visit his tomb today.  He was known in his lifetime for generosity.  There was perhaps an inevitability that pagan examples of that (like Odin) would be conflated with traditions honoring this Church Father. Read the rest of this entry »

Christmas Memories

Dec 22

Posted by Mike Stallard in Christmas | No Comments

It is Christmas season once again (2012).  As a believer in Jesus it is quite natural to have mixed feelings about all of the consumerism and partying that we complain about sometimes but never do anything about.  Perhaps the early American Puritans were on to something when they eschewed any celebrations on December 25.  Nonetheless, I seem trapped in the Christmas bubble like everyone else.  I do try to have a Christ-centered Christmas, but many family traditions still contain value for which I thank the Lord.  Below I have listed some random Christmas questions with my observations.

1.  Is December 25 the right day for the birthday of Jesus?

In the Western Church this has been the traditional day to celebrate Christ’s birthday since about the 4th century. There are some church groups which celebrate Jesus’ birth on other days, most notably January 6.   I have seen some research and commentaries that suggest that Jesus was not born in the winter.  One study Bible I looked at noted that the shepherds would not have had their flocks out in the field during the winter.  One man in a Sunday School class I was teaching years ago asked the obvious question, “Where else would they keep their flocks?”  I have been in Israel in the winter months when it snowed in Jerusalem.  The shepherds had their flocks in the field and brought them to the market on Fridays like they have been doing for centuries.  So I do not have a difficulty with a winter birth.  However, I am not sure we know enough to be dogmatic.  The important truth is that Jesus came into the world to save sinners like me.

2.  What is my favorite Christmas gift of all time that I have received?

There have been many special gifts I have received through the years.  One occasion was when my twin brother Jimmy and I gave each other a book.  This was when we were both in seminary.  We opened our presents at the same time and discovered we had given each other the same book! — Wuest’s Expanded Translation.  Of course, from Mom and Dad there was electric football, hockey, and baseball games.  However, when I think about Christmas gifts over the years, one of my first thoughts is about a Davy Crockett figurine I got when I was around 5 or 6 years old I believe.  The Disney production of the Davy Crockett saga ending with the Alamo story mesmerized me as a little boy.  Fess Parker who played Davy Crockett (picture to the right) became one of my heros.  As an adult when I visted the Alamo in San Antonio for the first time, it was a super special time. 

3.  Was any Christmas more special than others?

There is one Christmas season that stands out more than the others.  It was Christmas 1974.  I had come to faith in Christ in August of that year.  This was my first Christmas as a Christian.  I remember watching a TV presentation of “The Little Drummer Boy” that produced great emotion in me.  The thought came to me that “I final get it.  I now understand what it is all about.”  Of course, all have been special as my kids were born and raised and we visited grandma and grandpa.  There are special ones to come I suppose.  But that 1974 Christmas will remain unforgettable.

4.  Was Jesus really born of a virgin?

Of course.  Once you believe in a Creator God, the virgin birth is a small miracle and does not take much faith to believe in.  The Bible clearly teaches the virgin birth so I accept it.

Stay tuned for more Christmas Memories.

The Jesus’ Wife Fragment: Worth a Response?

Oct 31

Posted by Mike Stallard in New Testament Studies | No Comments

I have been tracking (although not very closely)  the discussions about the “Jesus’ Wife Fragment.”  It seems that a lot of the initial luster of the announcement has worn off, at least among the scholars.  Even initial supporters seem to be backing off the PR hype that occasioned the announcement.  I will not go into analytic detail here.  Others have done that admirably.  I am sure books will soon emerge or journal articles which will deal with the technicalities involved.  What I do want to do is mention a few questions that have emerged in my mind as I have looked at that issue.

First, I wondered right away about the timing of the raising of this issue.  Usually the so-called “Jesus issues” like the Da Vinci Code, the Gospel of Judas, etc., seem to be published between Christmas and Easter when interest in Jesus is at a peak in Western culture.  In this case, however, there is no book release.  It was a scholar’s paper issued at a conference.  This probably explains the difference in timing.  The scholar was putting it out there for other scholars to look at.  This is the normal process of scholarly research. In that sense, there was no PR hype to the same level as the other examples I’ve raised.  This may also explain why the issue died down quicker than the others since scholars of all theological positions have questioned the genuineness of this fragment.

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Jury Duty and Civic Responsibility

Sep 20

Posted by Mike Stallard in Government | No Comments

 I blogged last Fall about my first opportunity ever to be a witness in a trial.   Earlier this week I had something else happen to me that had never happened before in my entire life (I am about to turn 59).  I was selected to be on a jury at the Lackawanna Courthouse in Scranton, PA.  I have been in many jury pools and made it to the selected group to be questioned by lawyers to see which folks from the jury pool make it into the 12-seat box of jurors.  But never had I been selected to be on a jury.  It has been my assumption that all these years it is mostly because I was a Baptist minister.  But nothing prevented it this time.

I learned a lot of things in terms of judge’s instructions, rules for evidence, rules for jury note-taking, deliberation, video depositions, role-playing testimony, etc.  I learned how to work with 11 other people to talk things through in a tense kind of situation.  The case was a civil law suit in light of a car accident.  We decided unanimously in favor of the defendant.

As I sat there through the two-day trial, I wondered again at our country and system with all of its faults.  However, I thanked the Lord that in such cases, we can be judged by twelve of our peers instead of by some government bureaucrat or military figure.

Dr. Kaiser, Barndollar Lectures, and the Future of Israel

Sep 20

Posted by Mike Stallard in Barndollar Lectures, Israel, Prophecy | No Comments

Last week we combined the college students with the seminary students at Baptist Bible College and Seminary to have the Barndollar Lectures with Dr. Walt Kaiser, a premier evangelical Old Testament scholar.  In spite of the fact that he was 79 years old, he connected quite well to the 18-year olds in the audience as well as the seminary students and area pastors who had come to listen to him.  Let me comment upon my encounter with Dr. Kaiser, whom I had met previously through the Evangelical Theological Society.

First, he was a humorous and down to earth fellow, in person at meals, meeting with faculty, or in the pulpit.  He was a regular guy who did not treat others in a condescending way.  He treated all of us graciously.  Second, he affirmed what our seminary believes concerning hermeneutics and Israel, namely, literal interpretation of the Bible and a distinction between Israel and the Church.  Third, as a result of these convictions, he strongly presented the future of national Israel.  In harmony with this is the affirmation of the land promises throughout Scripture.  The title of the lecture series, held Sept. 10-13, was “God’s Future for Israel and the Near East.”  The first lecture was an overview of the great promises concerning Messiah including the giving of land to Israel.

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