Blogotional

Finally, a computer device worthy of the name. (TASTE WARNING)

The good life?

If you're gonna make meatloaf, make it pretty. Yes, I would eat it - in mass quantities. But don't leave it sitting around too long.

So, add a little cornstarch.

A man with proper priorities.

Way cool but the odds are grossly understated. Bascially, you could ruin an economy with a reasonable bet.

Related Tags: odds, joke, humor, wisecrack, sarcasm

We continue are alternate week look at speedsters this week with a short trip into the future where we encounter another branch of the West/Allen family tree - Iris West II.

I have written before of my fascination with the Kid Flash image. Placing the female form in that costume is an interesting twist. I can take or leave the jacket, but I understand female modesty and the need for same. I do; however wish they had let the hair go longer. The open top cowl is one of the great appeals of this look and to see it with long, flowing female locks just strikes me as very attractive.

Nonetheless, her story is short, but the images are spectacular, so let's just enjoy the view this week.



Related Tags: comics, comic books, comic art, Flash, Kid Flash, Barry Allen, Wally West, Iris West Allen, Iris West II

The Kruse Kronicle has been posting recently out of a book called "The Other Six Days." Recently he posted in two parts regarding ordination, office, and call for clergy. The bottom line is that the clerical offices, as they are currently practiced, are not really Biblical in origin. I don't think that is much of a surprise to anyone. He ends with a quotation of Thomas Gillespie that is well worth reprinting:

It will be realized only if the ‘nonclergy’ are willing to move up, if the ‘clergy’ are willing to move over, and if all God’s people are willing to move out. For the ministry of the community is rendered first and foremost in the world and for the world. It is performed in the daily lives of its people, in their participation and involvement in the structures of a complex society, in their sacrificial obedience in ‘worldly affairs,’ in their mission to reclaim the world for the God who claims the world in love.

Notice, there is a three-step plan there to have the church fall in line with Biblical examples for ordering the church that form a sort of circle. The compelling question for me in all of this is how do we cut the circle and make a line out of it so that we actually travel in the direction we should be rather than just keep running around the circle?

My answer is very straighforward. We start with the clergy "moving over" and more with that same clergy working to pull up the "non-clergy" that needs to move up. My reasoning is simple, as the people in the current leadership position, it is up to them to lead us where we need to be. And yet, this is for them, an inherently risky activity. They risk much

• Livelihood - if the church worked on this model, they could be out of a job
• Prestige - there is a cache' that comes with the job that is quite difficult to garner in other pursuits
• Control - of the church, of the congregants, and of their ability to project themselves as good Christians. And this I think is the biggest risk of all.

I never made enough money working for Young Life for that first item to be an issue, but the last two played an enormous role in my life and transition from professional to avocational ministry. The credibility and acceptance that came with the job was huge - it seemed like an instant stamp of legitimization. I had access to people and to places that was very difficult to obtain without that magic title.

But worst of all was control, and specifically control of my image as a "good Christian." Frankly, it was much harder work to keep up the "spiritual disciplines" with a real job than it was in professional ministry. It was also much harder to behave in a Christ-like fashion. It is one thing to act with grace when it is your job to do so and another thing altogether to act gracefully towards a client that is flat out trying to steal from you.

And yet, I cannot help but think that if one senses a call, a special call, to the Lord's service, it is a call to risk. We need leadership willing to take those risks, or we risk far more than just the personal.

Related Tags: church, clergy, ordination, office, risk

Something most notable on this list. There is not a bit of hard science in the lot - it is speculative, behavioral, and in some cases flat out political science. But then it is "popular" science books. Clearly the objectivity necessary to do hard science escapes the general public? I'd like to think we are smarter than that!

Speaking of which - I thought the WSJ was smarter than this. Trying to "fix" global warming IS trying to control the weather!

Yes, but the eruption was obviously triggered by an ancient nuclear device. After all, "warming events" are a result of human activity.

Semi-obscure comic book reference. If you get, you're cool. Claim a no-prize.

You say you want to be a hit seller on E-bay?

They making fun of us or Sewden? (Risque!)

"Thousands" were fooled? That's a lot of stupid people!

Well, if he had said something to sombody...

Yeah, but it is still going to Siberia! So now you can go nowhere in style.

Danger, Will Robinson! Could be an LMD.

Related Tags: science, global warming, joke, humor, wisecrack, sarcasm

Q: How many Southern Baptists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: About 16,000,000. However, they are badly divided over whether changing the bulb is a fundamental need or not.

Q: How many tele-evangelists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Honestly, we're not sure. But for the message of change to continue to go out, please keep those letters and checks coming.

Q: How many Episcopalians does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Four. One to change the bulb. One to bless the elements. One to pour the sherry. And one to offer a toast to the old lightbulb.

Q: How many United Church of Christ members does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Eleven. One to change the lightbulb. And ten more to organize a covered dish supper that will follow the changing of the bulb service.

Q: How many Lutherans does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: There is some question here. But we have it on good authority that they have appointed a committee to study the issue and report back to their next meeting.

Q: How many Charismatics does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Five. One to change the bulb and four to bind the spirit of darkness in the room.

Q: How many Presbyterians does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Are you kidding? They don't change burned out lightbulbs. After all, it was predestined to burn out. How can you fight predestination?

Q: How many Amish does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: What's a lightbulb?

Q: How many Unitarians does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: 300--12 to sit on the Board which appoints the Nominating and Personnel Committee. 5 to sit on the Nominating and Personnel Committee which appoints the House Committee. 8 to sit on the House Committee which appoints the Light Bulb changing committee. 4 to sit on the Light Bulb Changing Committee which chooses who will screw in the Light Bulb--those 4 then give their own opinion of "screwing in methods" while the one actually does the installation. After completion it takes 100 individuals to complain about the method of installation and another 177 to debate the ecological impact of using the light bulb at all.

Related Tags: churches, Friday humor, joke, humor, light bulb

I just flat out loved this post at Jollyblogger Largely reprinting someone else's work, which David does his best job of crediting, the posts addresses "God-Talk." A few excerpts, but please, read it all:

On those occasions when he visits the twentieth century, this giant puts on a pious voice. Instead of reading his Bible prayerfully, he has a "quiet time". This is when he is "a prayer warrior", "wrestling with God", "waging spiritual warfare" (all very quietly of course!). Instead of "I'll carefully consider it" this giant says "I'll pray about it", as if the Bible doesn't tell him enough and God will send a telegram (extra revelation) to inform the giant about what to do in every decision.

[...]

When the giant has an idea, he never calls it an idea, or plan, or suggestion. No, much too normal, those words." he goes to his "God-Talk" dictionary and uses much holier words and phrases, like "I have a vision", "I have a burden", "The Lord laid it on my heart", "I felt led", "I feel called of God", or the very authoritative "God told me". That man has "words of knowledge". When he describes the nitty-gritty of daily life it is never as normal as 'acting according to Biblical principles': rather it si the highly mysterious "being open to the leading of the Spirit".

[...]

The 'God-Talk' dialect is well suited to guilt-tripping. Any believer contemplating a cigarette is told "your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit". Strange thing that (quite apart from the complete misuse of I Cor. 3:16 & 6:19). Agreed that cigarettes don't help your health, what about living in Port Kembla or Dusseldorf or Chernobyl? The toxicity of the air breathed in those places makes cigarettes a preferred option. Should Christians get out of there? Is living there also defiling the 'temple of the Holy Spirit'?

This last excerpt starts to strike at the heart of what I think is a very serious problem with "God-talk." You see much of what the modern form of God-talk does is it attempts to make the mundane sound highly spiritual, allowing us, I believe, to avoid the real, deep work God has set out for us. We don't actually change our lives, we just talk about them differently and think we have changed them.

This is the speech version of what goes on in your average Christian bookstore. If you fill your house with enough garbage that has Christian symbology and references on it, then it must be a "Christian" household, even if every one in it behaves in a somewhat contrary manner. And by the way, isn't that why we Protestants have so much trouble with our Orthodox and Roman Catholic brethren and their use of images and symbols?

Will a truly transformed Christian's speech change? Probably, but then some people don't have such bad speech to begin with. But what will change will not be that kind of phraseology. No, what will change will be the message that comes through the medium. Openness will replace caution. Grace will replace condemnation. Love will replace hatred.

It's not what you say that matters, it's your character when you say it, and only God can change that.

Related Tags: church, religion, speech, God-talk, transformation, character

Related Tags: Illuminated Scripture, theme contest

Serious science in a worthy casue.

No wonder they killed off Cap.

Strange Love To be followed by a lover's quarrel.

Requires no comment, only laughter.

Well, at least it is from China.

Would you pass?

Why not! Dare to be different. Besides, horsepower is cool, and that's a lot of horsepower.

If you are here, you shouldn't own a pet.

Yes, well, plastic offends me! Now what?

Related Tags: joke, humor, wisecrack, sarcasm

Recently, Constructive Curmudgeon offered some advice on reading in two parts -- here's the rest. He is an advocate of "slow" reading. That would frustrate me. Now don't get me wrong, I love reading - do quite a bit of it, but, I love taking in as much information as I can as rapidly as I can.

For example, I loathe books-on-tape - it's just too slow. I can read much faster and retain much better using my eyes rather than my ears. The lack of ability to annotate is part of that, but I think it is because I organize information in my head visually, and unless I am taking notes when listening, I have no visual reference to retain the information.

Having said that; however, I do not mark up books a lot - I find that they are the record, why do I need to make a record of the record? It is a bit different if I am reading for specific research purposes, then I want to mark the stuff relevant to what I am looking into, but if I am reading a book simply for general information, then nah.

Why am I boring you with all these details? Simple. Groothius' primary point, that reading is good, and reading matters is one I agree with and want to pass on. Sometimes I am afraid; however, that his usally curmudgeonly and pendantic manner will be dissausive to some. Reading is individualistic and varies based on the material and purpose for the reading.

I, like the good Doctor, would strongly recommend the Adler book, but if I read everything I read using the methods Adler describes, I would not get much else done.

But the bottom line is this. Books are the ultimate record. They will not be replaced. As yet, technology has not devised a means of really presenting a book that is as physically comfortable as the printed, bound word. Books examine their topic in a depth unavailable to any other medium. Even fiction weaves a story to depths and examines characters at a level not possible through visual medium. Technology will add to books, it may end up transmitting them in a different way, but it will never replace them.

Get the book habit now, and enjoy it.

Related Tags: books, reading, information, methods, time

Oh no, it couldn't be that there is any, you know, truth, involved.

What idiot thought this up? I cannot even begin to tell you the chaos that would result.

How I shall celebrate my birthday - though I'll be seeing it in Las Vegas, not London.

Yes, winter is long in Denmark.

Is this redundant?

Bad accident, worse pun, not for the squeamish.

Obviously the Joker's doing.

Only filthy joke come to mind here, so I'll let you write your own.

Girl needs a social life.

Well, if you must, style points matter.

Panic, then die?

Nope, not me, never.

Related Tags: religion, joke, humor, wisecrack, sarcasm

Some time ago, Scotwise quoted extensively from a Cerulean Sanctum post that I had glossed over. Dan is discussing the plethora of Christian conferences and the lack of Christ apparent in our society. Consider:

Pastors, worship leaders, and Sunday School teachers will attend conferences for pastors, worship leaders, and Sunday School teachers. Men, women, couples, singles, seniors, and youth all have conferences geared to their unique needs. We have countless denominations conferencing to handle policy and chart the future of their group.

Yet we have no revival.

We sponsor conferences on theology, ecclesiology, purity, pastoral care, eschatology, hermeneutics, biblical archeology, and any topic within Christendom we can imagine. We even have conferences on evangelism.

Yet we have no revival.

We drop millions of dollars on airfare, trainfare, boatfare, and gasoline to get to conferences. We line the pockets of innumerable conference speakers, teachers, facilitators, and facility owners. We have the monetary equivalent of the GDP of a small African nation to spend on lodging, dining, and even sightseeing within conference host cities.

Yet we have no revival.

Dan uses these facts to hammer the church

I simply ask this: Are our churches so weak that we can’t disciple anyone to any reasonable level of maturity, so we have to send everyone running off to a plethora of conferences to take up the slack? If so, we should instead be staying home and fixing our churches with prayer, fasting, and faces-in-the-dust repentance. But do we do this? No. We pack people off to conferences. And as we’ve seen, we have thousands of conferences and yet we have no revival.

Dan goes on to discuss the misappropriation of resources present in this trend which is what I think begins to strike at the heart of the real problem. Conferences, like many of what pass for "mission trips" out of churches are little more than an excuse to travel on someone else's dime. The apparent success of these endeavors, I think, lies on that simple fact.

Travel does indeed seem like a luxury and therefore people tend not to do it, or to do so on tight budgets. We think we need "an excuse" to go somewhere, and expecially to go somewhere besides to visit relatives. So we cook up conferences in Laguana Nigel and mission trips to the Caribbean.

But in the end we fool ourselves, and worse we fool others. I would much rather gift my pastor with a vacation because he needs one than be told that "this trip to San Francisco will really help me help the church" when he'll be in only four hours of meetings a day and the church will get hit for a dinner tab of $50/person. I don't begrudge him the vacation or the conference, but I do hate the deception.

That's the bottom line here Let's quit the deception. Let's be honest with ourselves and with each other. Then I think productive things can happen. Then when we do go to conferences, it will be to actually go to the conference and they might be productive. Then when we go on vacation we will actually rest, rather than crowd it with business we are not really interested in.

And most of all we will be better men and women of God when we are truthful.

Related Tags: church, confernces, money, resources, deception, truth

I lack the vocabulary to describe this horror. (HT: Greenie Watch) To attempt to write anything redemptive about the Nazi regime....

I spoke to his #1 Environmental Minister in Moscow just 10 days before he stood in front of the tanks at the "Russian White House." The politics were naked and aggressive in a way Americans can hardly comprehend. History will view him as a mixed figure, as apparently are many Russians, but that may be why to this day Russia cannot pull it together and is slipping back into totalitarianism. He is a hero in my book.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong. Everybody knows it's Butler!

Speaking of Indiana. I hope they don;t cave.

Everybody is making fun of this. I don't know why. Resorting to litigation is less than wonderful, but the sentiment....

Science, with those goofy glasses. Next thing you know, you sit at a microscope and there will be a buzzer in the stool.

There are sports and then there are sports. I wonder if Payton Manning can get a perfect spiral with a goat?

Proof, movies do not reflect superhero reality. Everybody knows no one really knows the structure of kryptonite.

Quick call Steve McQueen.

Now that is a mushroom.

Talk about religion and politics

Related Tags: Nazis, global warming, Boris Yeltsin, joke, humor, wisecrack, sarcasm

Related Tags: cartoons, catblogging, Aggie, Flash

Jollyblogger started out discussing my favorite celebrity chef, but then turned very serious on a very serious matter.

These are just a few of many examples of kicking things up a notch, or several notches. I know reformed people who won't accept Baptists as reformed. I have met reformed people who don't recognize Arminians as Christians. Then we have Dave Hunt who doesn't recognize reformed people as Christians. And of course there are the Caner brothers down at Liberty who, . . . well never mind. The point of my comments is that this practice of kicking things up a notch makes Christianity look like one big king of the hill contest (please forgive me for switching metaphors mid-sentence). We are constantly trying to one-up each other, proving that we are more pure than the next guy.

It seems to me that almost anyone create a set of logical links between their own pet doctrine and another doctrine that is a notch or two higher in the "order" of doctrine, to borrow Mohler's triage analogy. And in doing so, they attain a higher level of purity and a higher level of rank in the kingdom.

Mostly I just want to second David here. What we see in this rhetorical gambit is the modern day equivalent of asking "Who will sit on your right hand, oh Lord?" And can I just say such is most unbecoming of the "grace alone," "totally depraved" crowd of Calvinists of which I usually count myself. How can people who rely on such claims have such incredible surety when it comes to their own understanding? How can such people lack the humility demanded by such doctrine?

I find this especially abhorent in matters of eschatology - what does it matter?!?!?!? God is in charge, He will do what He will do and whether we know what that is, or not, is relatively immaterial. I for one do not intend to live differently in either instance. John Hagee is running a whole bunch of radio ads right now selling his latest tome threatening the end of mankind, and every time I hear one, I want to puke. Who is truly transfromed by the power of Christ with such nonsense?

But finally, the thing I find most troubling is the tendency to "kick things up a notch" in such discussion is idolatry. Just like the mega-churches I so often deride as placing the institution ahead of the Lord, this kind of theological smackdown places theology ahead of Jesus Christ.

We worship a being, God made human, not an idea, not a thought, not a system. NO UNDERSTANDING OF GOD OR ANYTHING ABOUT HIM IS COMPLETE. Only God can decide who is is in and who is out. We must do our best to develop our understanding, but we must do so with humility and grace.

Related Tags: grace, humility, eschatology, smackdwon, Jollyblogger

Genius at work.

Dale's right -- now here is a thought - Isn't all the media, which is a veritable boatload, discussing how people are "coping with the tragedy," including the countless "personal reflection" blog entires out there, guilty of pretty much the same motivation?

There is something grossly pathetic about this. Also, note to churches out there - something like this might define "your market."

Dreams of avarice, or just dreams?

Send my check to....

What could possibly go wrong.

I wish she had been in the car last Thursday with that idiotother driver.

I'd be more impressed if she had done it without splashing.

Related Tags: global warming, Vriginia Tech, lonliness, joke, humor, sarcasm, wisecrack

Finest editorial cartoon of the decade.

Fish for president?

Ah tourism, there are souvenirs, and then...

There go the Hamptons.

I guess that is one way to realize your worst nightmare.

When did Imelda Marcos become pope?

Related Tags: Iraq, joke, humor, sarcasm, wisecrack

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Camden M. Cobern, professor of English Bible, and philosophy of religion, Allegheny College, Meadville, Pa., 1906 -1915; born in Uniontown, Pa., April 19, 1855; received A.B., A.M. and D.D. from Allegheny College; S.T.B. and Ph.D. from Boston University; and Litt.D. from Lawrence University; was the pastor of important churches such as Ann Arbor, Mich., Trinity church, Denver, and St. James, Chicago; gave courses of Bible lectures in different cities; known on both continents as the man who discovered the “bricks without straw” which the Israelites made in Egyptian bondage; was with the world‘s most famous excavator, Dr. W. M. Flinders Petrie, visiting him while he was digging up the archeological remains of several cities in Egypt and Palestine; author of a large work on Egypt, a critical commentary on Daniel, etc.



“The place whereon thou standest is holy ground.” - Exod. 3:5.

A poor man, an old man, a lonely man is tending his sheep on Mount Horeb. He is a failure. He had a chance once. Once he lived in the city and was thought well of at court; but because of certain ideals of his he threw up all this - and has missed a career. He was a big man in a big place once; but that was long ago. He is a nobody now. He has been a nobody for forty years. He has grown slow of tongue. He has lost his courtly bearing, and in appearance as in speech has become a rustic. If he had only been a little less impulsive, a little less patriotic or conscientious, he might have made quite a success in life. Poor old man - a little man in a little place! But God still remembers him. Others forget him, but what a blest thing it is that God even remembers the little man in the little place.

But are we absolutely sure, after all, that Moses is a smaller man than he was forty years ago? No. He has been hidden and forgotten, but he is still the big man - so big that he can take the biggest task ever given by the Almighty to a mortal man for two thousand years. He is a greater man than he was forty years ago. He was not great enough then for this great task of nation-building. The desert has been his teacher. The God of the sky and of the heart has been teaching him self-poise and self-mastery. He has had time and chance to get away from the little things of the city and the court and think of the big things of life; to think and grow. Do not pity Moses because he lost half a lifetime in the country. That made him. That was part of God’s plan for him and the world. God’s man need not be in a hurry to get into a big place. If he is God’s man, God will lead him and give him a task big enough for his fullest powers.

What did Moses learn in the desert? He learned its resources, its hidden springs, its oases. He learned the ways of the desert folk and made blood-brotherhood with them. It was God’s plan to thus prepare allies for the mightiest deliverance of a slave people known to history.

One day the new call came to the new stupendous task for which the old little task had prepared him. A bush began to burn as he passed by, and continued to burn, and was not consumed. “And Moses said, I will turn aside now and see this great sight why the bush is not burnt. And when Jehovah saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him.” That was the test. It is so today. We talk of the deadline. That is the test as to whether a man has reached it. When a man has lost inquisitiveness for new truth, when he has lost interest in the new things of the new present, when he has become too old to “turn aside to see,” then he has reached the deadline. Then even God Almighty cap not use him as a leader. But when he finds God in the novelties of daily life, then the place where he stands may become holy ground.

What makes a particular spot “holy ground”? Is it holy because God is there? No. God is everywhere. Why is this particular spot holy? Because God and man are here together, and the man recognizes God‘s presence and finds his world task.

It is a holy moment and a holy place when God and I are linked together eternally and I make the soul-thrilling discovery that He needs me to help Him save the world. That is a place better than heaven, where a man hears the voice of the Eternal saying, “I need you,” and joins partnership with the omnipotent God - omnipotent and yet not able, as the human heart is now constructed, to “make a best man without man‘s best to help Him.” To be called to such work is better than to be called to go to Paradise in a chariot of fire. There is a good deal of sham in much of our talk about wanting to go to heaven. I believe in heaven; but I don’t want to go yet. Earth is better for me now. If there were twenty airships anchored in front of this church at this very minute, each bound for the New Jerusalem, all of them manned by angels in white robes and carrying a written guarantee from the King of Heaven that they would make the journey safely, I would not apply for passage. I can not conceive of anything in heaven equal to the task given me here and now of helping the Christ to conquer this earth. Why did God, when Cornelius prayed, send to Joppa for Peter, calling upon him to make that long trip to Caesarea and tell that heathen how to be saved? Why did not God send His angel? Because no angel could tell that story. Only the man who has fought the beast in himself and got the victory through Christ’s help can tell the power of Jesus’ blood. No archangel could do that. Why did not God Himself whisper to Cornelius the way of life? Was it that He was unwilling to take away that possible star out of Peter’s crown, or is the human agency in salvation a necessity which even the great God acknowledges? In any case, how glad Peter must have been that he did not get to heaven too soon! He wanted to go once on the Mount of Transfiguration - or at least to turn that mountain into Paradise and stay there - but how glad he ought to have been that he was still on the earth and able to help this One, greater than Moses, in the one and only task greater than the deliverance of an enslaved nation - the deliverance of an enslaved world.

It is better than heaven to feel that God is using me as He could not use an angel and as He could not use me in heaven.

That there is a mystery about the Omnipotent using and needing human help to save and uplift the world we must admit. But we must also admit the fact. The battle-hymn of the old church army was “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.” That was big honor for Gideon. It is doubtful if that battle would have been won without Gideon. So in the New Testament: would Jesus have worked the miracle of feeding the five thousand if there had been no boy there willing to do his part? Did not the boy help Jesus work the miracle? So we help Him work His miracles of healing now. Does He not say distinctly that we have a part which if we fail to do will affect His power to save? He could do no mighty works in one place because of their unbelief in the olden time. He is crippled in His saving work now in the same way. Yes, and by our inactivity. “We are members of his body,” wrote the apostle and some eighteen hundred years ago or more an ancient reader added, and wisely, “Of his flesh and of his bones” (Eph. 5:30). That is, we are as necessary to Him in this one particular work as hands and feet are necessary to us in doing our work. “Ye are the body of Christ and severally members thereof.” The body is not one member, but many; and each member is needed. “God hath set the members each one of them in the body even as it pleased him” (1 Cor. 12). Too often when the Christ would do some mighty works to¬day the body is paralyzed through which He seeks to act. Ye are His very flesh and bones! This is His second incarnation in human flesh. What honor is this that I may be His hand to help Him lift up the fallen. Can any better task come to us in any other world? Perhaps a greater task may come, but not this task— and to neglect this is to fail to do a work which is more important now than any joy which heaven could give us.

But not only the spots devoted to what we call religious work are sacred. The whole man is sacred, and the whole work of God’s man is sacred work. It is not one day in seven and one place in Palestine and one man in a nation, but all God‘s men are priests, and the temple is in the man‘s own heart and the sacred work is all the work of the daily human Christian toil. As in the making of the tabernacle, God inspired men to spin and work in wood and brass; so now the work on the farm or in the store or in the home may be as sacred toil, and as truly religious as the words spoken in the pulpit or the testimony given in the prayer-meeting. The steps of a good man are ordered of the Lord; not simply his steps when he travels to the house of God, but when he goes to his business office and about his every-day duties. Man’s religious life extends through seven days of the week and twenty-four hours of each day. He does not lose his religion, eyen when he is asleep. To sleep when it is time to sleep, and to laugh when it is time to laugh, and to work when it is time to work, is just as religious as to say one ‘s prayers. It is just as Christian a duty to saw wood or deliver mail or build a house, or put in the plumbing so it will stay, or keep the accounts so that no recording angel can find fault with them, as it is to go to the communion table. God wants religious men as world-workers. Not to provide for the things of one’s own household is to be worse than an infidel. To fail to provide the necessary things for the wife and children of one’s household in order to get to the prayer-meeting is a sin. To be diligent in business is as much a duty as to trust in God. To take care of the house and the children is a higher duty than to go to the missionary rally. If one or the other must be given up, it should be the latter. The religious value of good cooking has never yet been sufficiently discussed. Our distinctions between secular and religious activities are artificial and unbiblical. It is religious to do one’s daily task as “unto the Lord.” As Hiram Golf said, there is such a thing as being a shoemaker “by the grace of God.” Good shoes are just as necessary as good sermons. The cobbler who fails to mend the shoe religiously, and so allows William Bunkles’ youngest to catch cold and die, will find at the judgment day what it means to be false to one’s daily religious task. A defective cap used in a drill-hole yesterday exploded prematurely and blew twenty-eight men into eternity. What shall be said of the man who made that defective cap? Carelessness in stitching a saddle-girth, it has been said, caused a general to fall from his horse at a critical moment and a great battle to be lost. The man who made that saddle-girth, stopping to take a glass of beer and thus carelessly losing a stitch, or the army contractor who furnished poor thread instead of the best, did not do their daily tasks religiously - and in the judgment day, if the universe is gov¬erned justly, they must suffer penalty. It is a great thing when a man realizes that “the place where thou standest is holy ground.” God is here! The task I do is under His eye and according to His will, and this seemingly small task is to take its place in the large scheme for bringing in the heavenly kingdom upon the earth.

There are no “little” unimportant things in an immortal life, which is a part of a divine plan for the coming future. All human life is sacred when the man who lives the life is God’s man. It is better than heaven to help God make the “new heaven and the new earth” which is to come.

It is better to be on the wicked earth helping to make it better with God looking on approvingly, than to be singing hallelujahs with holy angels. If God wanted us in heaven He could easily provide transportation. Where He wants us to be is better for us than paradise. If we are where God wants us to be, then the place where we stand is holy ground.

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