A Tainted Great Line

David’s general Joab was a ruthless sort of guy.  On the plus side, he was loyal to his king when many deserted him to follow Absalom (2 Samuel  15-18).  He also rebuked David twice when his decisions were questionable (2 Samuel 19.5-7 and 24.3).

But he was vengeful, murdering Israel’s general Abner, who had killed Joab’s brother during an earlier battle (2 Samuel 3.26-27).  He also murdered David’s son Absalom (2Samuel 18.9-15). He was deceitful, prompting an old woman with a fictitious story to manipulate the king (2 Samuel 14). 

So, the otherwise hugely heroic line from 2 Samuel 10.12 seems a bit tainted.  Joab and his men are outnumbered and caught between Syrian and Ammonite forces.  He deploys his men strategically, draws out a simple battle plan, then encourages his men and proclaims his trust in God with “Be of good courage, and let us be courageous for our people, and for the cities of our God, and may the LORD do what seems good to him.”  Because of Joab’s other actions, you wonder if he is being sincere or fatalistic.

God wins the battle for the Israelites.   And maybe that is the point – God does the winning.  Characters in the Bible are shown with all their flaws – vengeful, deceitful, adulterous, murdering offenders against God’s holiness.  But God has a wonderful plan for his creation, saving those who believe in Him and allowing men to be heroic at times even though they are sinners.

Differences

What’s the difference between a tuna,  a piano, and an opened tube of glue?

You can tuna piano, but you can’t piano a tuna.

 

What about the glue?

I thought you’d get stuck on that one!

 

 

Thanks, Linnea!

Wisdom in Small Things

The Executive Committee of the Consistory at our church meets monthly to act for the whole consistory and deal mainly with administrative matters.  This frees the Elders and Deacons to concentrate on their pastoral and support ministries.  In some seasons, the church leaders are dealing with many HUGE issues, like a choice of denomination, a building project, a case of widespread sin in the membership. 

At such times, it is good for the ExComm to remember that even though the BIG matters are important, we need to be wise in the ministry of small things.  To that end, we opened our meeting by reading and briefly applying the following verses to our work.  Then we prayed through the agenda, praising God as the One who knows all things; asking for humble hearts; asking that we would do all things as unto Him; and being thankful that He knows what we are going through.

 Zechariah 4.8-10  Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also complete it. Then you will know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to you. For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice, and shall see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel.

 Matthew 13.31-32    He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

 Proverbs 30.24-28

                    Four things on earth are small, but they are exceedingly wise:

                    the ants are a people not strong, yet they provide their food in the summer;

                    the rock badgers are a people not mighty, yet they make their homes in the cliffs;

                    the locusts have no king, yet all of them march in rank;

                    the lizard you can take in your hands, yet it is in kings’ palaces.

 Matthew 18.10 See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.

 Colossians 3.16-17 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

 

Cool Number Dates – 5/11/14 – 5/17/14

I don’t have any cool dates on my calendar for this year, but I can punt.

Today is Mother’s Day! We can celebrate even without great numbers.

 

Five and Fourteen don’t get along very well.  Come back next year because 5 and 15 have a great relationship!

5/11/14 through 5/17/14:  11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17… each is one number larger than the previous!

And 5/15 is the Ides of May.  Some Roman or Greek or somebody was probably assassinated that day, although it is not as popular as the Ides of March.

Cows

What do you call a cow that’s just given birth?

Decafinated.

 

What do you call a cow with four legs?

A cow.

 

What do you call a cow with two legs?

Ilene

 

What do you call a cow with no legs?

Ground beef

 

What do you call a cow with three legs?

Lean beef

CMU Summer

Our first apartment was in the MSU Married Housing complex called Spartan Village, in the back, close to the laundry.  Our building became a gathering point for young church couples because Diane worked in the administrative office for Married Housing and did the assigning of applicants to apartments.  So over the three years we were there (September 1972 through May 1975) Diane arranged for us to be neighbors at times with Steve and Marilyn, Ron and Joyce, and Joe and Debbie.

When it was time to move, I was worried we would not be able to afford higher rent.  I had finished the Master’s degree, so we were no longer welcome in University housing.  The Yingers were living in an East Lansing duplex and they were urging us to move into the other side which had come open.  The standing joke when we would leave after visiting them was, “just think, if you lived next door, you’d be home by now.”  But the rent was going to double.  How could we afford it? Diane was also unemployed after finishing a one-year eighth-grade pregnancy-leave Middle-school teaching-job in Laingsburg  (sorry, the hyphens got away from me there).  The pregnancy leave baby was born, the teacher was returning, and we had no guarantee of continued employment. 

But God and Determined Diane found a way to make it work.  It turned out there was a fifth-grade job opening at the Laingsburg middle school, but the “successful applicant” had to have an elementary certificate.  Diane’s high school English and Journalism certificate worked for a one-year eighth grade gig, but no lower.  She checked with alma mater MSU who said it would take two years and another round of student teaching.  Discouraged Diane contacted other schools; Central Michigan promised they would grant the credential if she could take five classes and eighteen credits during the shortened summer term!  Delighted Diane agreed, got the job (provisionally), and we moved to Orchard Street.  

 A key component to class success was Diane’s childhood bicycle, a fat-wheeled, high handle-bar job that had seen better days. It was just right for riding on bumpy campus sidewalks and needed no lock since it was agedly unattractive.  For five weeks in June and July, Datsun-driving Diane made daily trips to Mount Pleasant, where she would park in a far-off lot, jump on the bike and ride to class.  At the end of the day, she would ride back to the car and drive home.  After the last day of class, she kissed that bike goodbye, and we have always hoped it was discovered by a worthy CMU undergrad. 

One Year Anniversary

One year ago today (5/7/2013) the first several posts for “A. Knapp For That” appeared.  This one makes 431, give or take. 

I find the categories help me to stay organized.  The counts by category:

Clean Jokes:                         148

Cool Numbers:                      65

Fear and Awe:                       45

Gospel Messages:               48

Group Prayer:                       39

Holy Lists:                               52

This I Know:                            45

Two or More Categories:   11

Add up the first seven categories and you get 442.  Then subtract the double counts to get 431. Maybe that means the Give or Take above is zero.  Arithmetic is amazing!

My kids would say there has been a post every day, just like they would say I never drink alcohol.  The mathematician in me knows I missed a day or two over Christmas when our power was out and maybe another time.  I also know I had a wine cooler back in the days when Diane and I were taking disco dance lessons. Always and Never are hard to live up to.

The little counter thing at the bottom says more than 35000 “hits.”  I think that is the number of pages.  It seems to be about 100 people visit every day. As Eyore says, “Thanks for noticing!” 

I have thought of adding pictures and getting a facebook page and other stuff suggested in this big Blogging Book I received as a Christmas present. That may be fun to do this summer after my second client’s contract ends.

Thanks to Dave for setting up the site and to Linnea and Jason for giving me the push to get started. And thanks to the several people who have left comments!

Be Careful Moving the Ark

After King David and his men conquered Jerusalem in 2 Samuel 5, it seemed good to them to bring the Ark of the Covenant there.  This is not Noah’s great big boat, but the chest portrayed in the Indiana Jones movie as attracting lightning and melting Nazis.

As the oxen were transporting the ark, they stumbled.  Uzzah, one of the priests, put his hand on the chest to steady it.  God was angry at this touching and struck Uzzah dead on the spot. Other bible characters like Aaron’s sons (Leviticus 10) and Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5) have been killed dead by God, but they seemed to deserve it more for playing loose with fire and money. The death of Uzzah was a huge warning to the whole kingdom about observing the holiness of God and the His things.

King David was angry and afraid at the same time, “How can the ark of the LORD come to me?”

They left the ark in the nearby home of Obed-edom the Gittite for three months.  Once everyone saw that Obed and his household were exceedingly blessed during this time, David decided to move it the rest of the way to the new capital city.  This time, they went with dancing, singing, praising God, and presumably, more care with the transportation.