Forgiveness with boundries

One of the things that I love about forgiveness is that it never excuses a behavior or tolerates a bad behavior.  It says that something hurtful happened but somehow I want to work through that issue. I might reconcile with you or I might not. Forgiveness doesn't demand reconciliation. It sets the stage for it, if you will, but it doesn’t require it. I can forgive but still set boundaries.  Forgiveness has within it boundaries that are sufficient to protect ourselves from further insults from those who have hurt us. Those boundaries are the distance we need so we can continue to love those who have hurt us. Forgiveness does not take the hurt or anger away. It does not change what is right or wrong. It does not mean we have to agree. Forgiveness allows us to communicate our love from the distance where we feel safe. 

Football on our Wall in Fall y'all

Panther Football Schedule 2010

Pics of the house

We are finally getting closer to completion on the facelift to the new house. Please say a prayer that all will go well with our closing. It is scheduled for Friday. Hopefully then we can move in and turn this from a great house to our home!

Please forgive the mispellings (whtie instead of white). It is just a thing that I do, which you know if you have been reading this blog. They should put spell check on adobe photoshop....it would help me a ton!

Eisegesis VS. Exegesis

I recently came across these two words in a fantastic book that I am reading and because I am certainly not a theologian I had to dig further into just exactly what this means. I know that I have at times been guilty of trying to fit God's word into my point of view. I just felt the need to share this in case I am not the only one who needed a "heart conviction" today! What are your thoughts?

2 Chronicles 27:1-2

“Jotham was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem sixteen years. . . . He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, just as his father Uzziah had done, but unlike him he did not enter the temple of the LORD.”

EISEGESIS
First, the interpreter decides on a topic. Today, it’s “The Importance of Church Attendance.” The interpreter reads 2 Chronicles 27:1-2 and sees that King Jotham was a good king, just like his father Uzziah had been, except for one thing: he didn’t go to the temple! This passage seems to fit his idea, so he uses it. The resulting sermon deals with the need for passing on godly values from one generation to the next. Just because King Uzziah went to the temple every week didn’t mean that his son would continue the practice. In the same way, many young people today tragically turn from their parents’ training, and church attendance drops off. The sermon ends with a question: “How many blessings did Jotham fail to receive, simply because he neglected church?”

Certainly, there is nothing wrong with preaching about church attendance or the transmission of values. And a cursory reading of 2 Chronicles 27:1-2 seems to support that passage as an apt illustration. However, the above interpretation is totally wrong. For Jotham not to go to the temple was not wrong; in fact, it was very good, as the proper approach to the passage will show.

EXEGESIS
First, the interpreter reads the passage and, to fully understand the context, he reads the histories of both Uzziah and Jotham (2 Chronicles 26-27; 2 Kings 15:1-6, 32-38). In his observation, he discovers that King Uzziah was a good king who nevertheless disobeyed the Lord when he went to the temple and offered incense on the altar—something only a priest had the right to do (2 Chronicles 26:16-20). Uzziah’s pride and his contamination of the temple resulted in his having “leprosy until the day he died” (2 Chronicles 26:21).

Needing to know why Uzziah spent the rest of his life in isolation, the interpreter studies Leviticus 13:46 and does some research on leprosy. Then he compares the use of illness as a punishment in other passages, such as 2 Kings 5:27; 2 Chronicles 16:12; and 21:12-15.

By this time, the exegete understands something important: when the passage says Jotham “did not enter the temple of the LORD,” it means he did not did not repeat his father’s mistake. Uzziah had proudly usurped the priest’s office; Jotham was more obedient.

The resulting sermon might deal with the Lord’s discipline of His children, with the blessing of total obedience, or with our need to learn from the mistakes of the past rather than repeat them.
Of course, exegesis takes more time than eisegesis. But if we are to be those unashamed workmen “who correctly handle the word of truth,” then we must take the time to truly understand the text. Exegesis is the only way.

Poem by Wilbur Rees

"I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please - not enough to
explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of
warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don't want enough of him to make
me love a foreigner or pick beets with a migrant worker. I want ecstasy,
not transformation; I want the warmth of a womb, not a new birth. I want
a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I'd like to buy $3 worth of God,
please."