The BCV Bible.

I used to need the Bible to be like a cook book. If you follow the instructions, add ingredients, and cook just so at the right temperature a beautiful quiche comes out of the oven. If this is the Bible you are looking for you are in for disappointment.

I recently taught through a story about Jesus from Matthew 15:21-28. (Read it. Then blurt out the first response you have.) It pains me to say Jesus does not look too hot in this story. This is not the flannel board Jesus gathering the little children to him of Sunday School. Jesus here puts a lady through some unnecessary stuff. He ignores and insults her. I have to say I like the lady's moxie. She ignores his disciples and she ignores all the things he does to drive her away. Her daughter was possessed and this was her last hope. There was nothing else. This was desperate faith and it was rewarded. The story ends well.

But I have been haunted by Jesus in this. I have searched for explanations for his behavior. I have tried to find a defense for behavior that at every glance and every way is indefensible. What I end up with is a big bag of nothing and more questions. I'm at a place in my journey with God where that is OK. Here is a place where Jesus doesn't look too good. Another instance is the story of Job. God doesn't look too good here either. And yet I still try to follow. Faith is a funny thing. It is counter-intuitive. Intellect (and all the emotions that go with it) can only carry you a mile in your journey. Faith takes you the other million. The woman in the story was rewarded for her faith. Her daughter was healed because of her faith. I don't know how much she liked Jesus during those tense moments. There have been times I don't like God. But in the end she knew this was her only chance her daughter had for peace. She was not deterred.

Yeah, me too.

Kissing Frogs

If I could go back in time as Valentine's Day rolls around I would do this one thing. Find the guy that wrote the fairy tale about the Princess that kissed the frog and turned him into a prince. I would find that guy and grab him by the ears and slam his face on his primitive writing table until I rendered him unconscious. Then I would burn all of his manuscripts. Then I would go and trade a large Scottish man a shotgun for his Claymore sword. Claymores don't kill people. Large Scottish men with Claymores kill people. I'm just saying. And this large Scottish-American man thinks the dude that wrote this story was wrong.

I work with students. I am a student minister. How good I'm am at it, well the jury is still out. But none of the students that have sat under my teaching are serial killers. At least not yet. But I see girls making the same mistake that the princess in the story was making when she put her lips on the frog. They keep going out with frogs thinking that the power of their love can turn him into the prince of their dreams. All they ever end up with is warts. Or worse.

I find myself wanting to scream seeing girls make the same mistakes that many of their mothers made. They married the freaking frog thinking that she could change him. This myth is perpetuated in one of the dumbest movies I have ever had the displeasure of watching, A Walk to Remember. I watched this movie at the house with my wife and several of the girls in out ministry at the time. Toward the end of this movie all of the girls were crying and I was praying that Jesus would come back and make this end. This girl was able to change this frog into a prince by the power of her love and still remain pure. Girls, this is the good news. The bad news is she had cancer and died right after they got married. Wicked trade off if you ask me.

Here is the fairy tale I would like to see invade the consciousness of every girl that calls herself a child of God. I get the sense from reading Genesis 2 that God had a plan for Adam when he made Eve for him. In one concise little story God instituted marriage and gave us all something to hope for. God made Eve for Adam. She came from him. This excited him when she first came on the scene enough that he uttered the most romantic line ever (not "Don't let go Rose." or "You had me at hello."). "This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh." OK, maybe that has lost a little something in the translation. How about this. "This woman is as much a part of me as my heart and my soul." He was excited about what God had given him. He didn't have to go hunting her. He didn't have to play the game. Too many people bring the one that they want to God and present him. I believe that God would not go to all of the trouble of tailor making someone for you and leave it up to chance and the rules of the dating game to find that person. He brought Eve to Adam and Adam to Eve.

The moral of the story for girls to a large extent and guys to a lesser one. You cannot change a person. And if that person is the person that God made for you (and made you for) why would you want to change them?