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Articles from this month's issue of the Berean News |
Perspectiveby Larry UrbaniakIt is a fairly well-known fact that the game of basketball was invented by Dr. James Naismith in the winter of 1891-92. He was a young physical education instructor who was trying to end winter boredom for young men who had to take a required P.E. class. So, Dr. Naismith nailed up two half-bushel peach baskets onto the lower rail of the gym balcony at opposite ends of the gym. With a few rules, he had invented the exciting and fast-paced game of basketball. What is not as well known is the fact that James Naismith was an ordained Presbyterian minister. He was just beginning his ministry when he invented basketball. It is said that he worked at Springfield College, but it wasn’t named that until some years later. When James Naismith started work there, it was called the International YMCA Training School. His job was not really just to teach physical education to bored college kids. Instead, his ministry was to help train young men to become leaders of the then-growing Sunday school movement and the similarly growing YMCA movement. The two movements were closely allied. The idea was to build character and teach Christian virtue in young people. The YMCA movement promoted a fourfold program for fitness: physical, social, mental, and spiritual development. The emphasis was on the principle that strength of character and spiritual values was the highest and ultimate form of personal fitness. It is too bad that few people today know that both basketball and the YMCA movement started out with a spiritual focus and purpose. Unfortunately, the local Y of today has lost that focus. It is indistinguishable from any other private health club. And basketball is largely integrated into our culture’s growing entertainment industry. Both are driven by the desire to make money. It is interesting, but tragic, that so often spiritual origins and goals become lost. Society has a way of taking over and secularizing successful spiritual ventures. When that happens, the venture is no longer successful spiritually. May each of us be alert to this danger and not let our culture drown out or swallow up our own personal spiritual origins. |
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Roy's Reflections "Those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength, they will soar on wings like the eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." (Isaiah 40:31). "...For twelve years she had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had; yet instead of getting better she grew worse." (Mark 5:25). "While Jesus was still speaking, some men came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue ruler. “Your daughter is dead,” they said, “Why bother the teacher any more?”" (Mark 5:35). Parents waiting for children out past curfew know it. Couples having trouble conceiving a child know it. A person needing an organ transplant knows it. A candidate for law or medical school knows it. A pregnant mom 10 days past due knows it. A person struggling to be hired for a job knows it. In fact, at one time or another, most of us come to know this brooding beast. It’s the long wait — that drawn out time of fretful anticipation and extended longing. “Those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength...” Often, this is easier said than done. Before we get to “mount up on wings like eagles,” we often have to obediently grind away through the brutal passage of agonizing time. Before we can “run and not grow weary,” we have to trudge on as our hope and anticipation dims. Many times, we just have to keep walking and straining forward with trust and faith that God’s grace will help us “not faint.” That’s what makes this story of Jairus’ daughter so compelling to me. Like you, I don’t like to wait. In my mind, if there is any privilege for those with power and position, one should not have to wait! “They” surely don’t have to wait like I do. “They” get to move to the head of line. “They” get to throw around their weight and get what they want when they want it. In this case, however, “They” (or more accurately, “he”) didn’t. (See Mark 5:21-43) Instead, Jairus’ humbling approach to Jesus, an approach that could cost him everything in his temple society, was interrupted by a desperate woman who had faced “the long wait” herself as she had hopelessly gone to every healer available to her, and no doubt prayed incessantly for her own cure. This woman, who could not go into the synagogue because of her uncleanness, derailed the hope parade of Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue. I find two things amazing about both of them. First, neither complains about his or her wait. Not the woman, who has spent her fortune on false medical hopes, nor Jairus, who has risked his religious position to associate himself with this suspicious teacher. Both wait for their Lord to act. Impatiently waiting? Probably! But, they waited and received their grace. Second, they both received the personal attention of the Lord — the man of power who could expect that attention and the woman on the fringes who, in her day, could not expect it. Jesus refused to let the woman have an anonymous miracle — He personally and specifically blessed her. Jairus’ daughter would not be healed for the crowd, but only in the closed intimacy of Jesus’ chosen few and Jairus’ family. Both waited faithfully. Both received the personal attention of the Master! Each received his or her heart’s greatest desire. This is not a story about long ago and far away. It is a reminder that Jesus is there for those who wait. You see, the issue isn’t the wait. Instead, it is all about refusing to give up hope when the journey seems so long (12 years for the woman) and the problems so insurmountable (a dead 12 year- old daughter for Jairus). Maybe you face the long wait right now. Maybe your heartbreak or shame or disappointment or loss seems insurmountable. If so, I want to encourage you to come back to this story of the powerless woman and the powerful man and remember the place their broken hearts met, the place their broken dreams were mended, and the place their long wait ended. Know that the place is really a person, and his name is Jesus. |
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Viewpoints
Ecology & Equity by Joe Funari Environment is the milieu (I've never used that word before!) of life, the natural setting for creaturely existence in the world. More than simply ecosystems within continents and oceans, it refers to the whole earth as a dynamic community of both living and non-living entities. Modern environmental concern focuses on appreciating nature and preserving ecological integrity while using natural resources carefully and distributing its benefits. It challenges any human activity that would undermine any healthy natural process. And rightly so. We tend to think of this enviro-awareness as a 20th & 21st century innovation. However, biblical writers, though prescientific, reflect implicit ecological wisdom and affirm the intrinsic value of nature as God's good creation. As the Creator, He is understood to be actively concerned for the well-being of His work. And when He rouses to assume the role of Deliverer, He is a utilizer of natural process to set things right. The prophets warn of environmental disasters resulting from social injustice with severe effects on animals, birds and even fish (Hosea 4:1-3, Jer. 9:4-11). Both Testaments envision a harmonious community of life in which all creatures are restored to redeemed natural orders and places. And Revalation 11:18 discloses that as a part of His execution of justice, those who destroy the earth will themselves be destroyed. There are both ancient and modern reasons for humanity's failure to do justice to all of God's creation by caring for ecology and equity together. The perennial barrier to "eco-socio-justice" is the carelessness of greed. In Genesis' account we learn that our first parents, earth's first landlord and lady, were charged with "keeping" the creation. Of course, they sinned and were not only subject to the dying process, but were also expelled from His garden. Their sin not only brought death to the race but left vacant the position of "tilling" the garden. Since then there has been no one to till it with the intended care and to distribute fairly the fruits of their tilling. Many local environmental upheavals today have the same origin: People in positions of power abuse the environment for short-term gain and/or situate the toxic wastes they produce among those who are powerless to oppose them. So it has always been. Though so much larger in scale and so much increased in toxicity, environmental abuse today is only a newer facet of an old story. "There is nothing new under the sun." As in the account of the ancient construction project in Shinar, the tower of Babylon, pride of mastery and fascination with technological prowess have become partnered with greed and carelessness. One obvious example is the effort to harness the atom for national defense and development. Both capitalist and socialist societies were blind to the long-term hazardous effects of using plutonium in weaponry and were stunned, in turn, by power plant accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Still, regardless of the possible consequence, in the pursuit of wealth or a cheaper, more efficient way of death-dealing, a technology developed is a technology employed. So, as a result of poor stewardship of earth's resources we are exposed to a distinctly modern environmental crisis of radioactive exposure that is influencing local animal life on the genetic level, producing birth defects and mutations. Something that would have made even the prophets tremble. We have a message for a world under threat of global warming, ozone depletion, deforesting and industrial and commercail consumption without regard for cumulative ecological consequence. Our Lord Yahweh still loves and cares for the whole of His creation. "He's (still) got the whole world (and all thereon) in His hands!" Psalm 146:6,7 tells us that He that keeps creation will also establish justice and equity. What a comfort! Creation groans waiting for our redemption (Rom. 8:22) and thirsts for the times of refreshing and the restitution of ALL things which God spoke of through all the holy prophets since the world began (Acts 3:19-21). This is what we as a Christian movement have always preached. It is a message that remains unique from that given in much of fundamental Christianity. Though there is the increasing awareness of the brittle nature of ecological balance, it comes with the rude awakening as to the extent of human abuse. As unsettling as this may be to our fellow creatures, it increases the magnitude of the message of consolation God has given us. The power and thrust of that message can be further increased by our being models of those who hold God's creation in high regard. We should strive to be examples to our neighbors in the community of environmental responsibility, as individuals and as a congregation. It might be fun to consider how we should do this. And it might produce a witness that serves to help us call attention to the message of restitution and to the fact that the God we serve is not One who will not forever tolerate the abuse of His "good" work. And that He will make good the damage done to His creatures and the home He has fashioned for them. At the very least it might give testimony that if we, who believe Jesus' promise that "the meek shall inherit the earth", could have it our way, we wouldn't wish to leave it to them in such a mess! |
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A Daughter's Heart by Ann Teunis Often, I am reminded of Jesus’ admonishment to the apostles when they inquired as to who among them would be the greatest in the Kingdom. Jesus said to them, “…Unless you turn from your sins and become (be converted, be turned) as little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Matt. 18:3) What an odd statement that must have been to the apostles; children are a strange analogy for those who perceive themselves not only “Kingdom-bound,” but as potential teachers & leaders in the Kingdom. Children are so weak, needy and virtually without accomplishment or status, why would they inherit the Kingdom? Jesus knew that children are a more pure form of the human creation; they are trusting, unused, dependent and easily led. It’s been my observation that the older we get, quite often, the more jaded, guarded, over-intellectualized and negative we become. Why is this? Could it be that the child that once dwelled within has been so beaten up, battered, abused and bruised, that that child no longer exists, or, has taken respite deep within and won’t take the chance on coming out again? Could be. I believe that Jesus told His apostles that the concept of “becoming as children” was worth pursuing, was something to be desired, and something to be relearned and practiced. I liken the lack of child-like wonder, trust, love and pure joy over the simple things to a loss of innocence, a loss of thinking that anything is possible, a loss of joy from the real joy-giver. I want everyone I know to regain that innocence in their lives, to know that all things are possible with and through Christ, and most importantly, I want them to get God’s joy. That reminds me of those “Got Milk?” ads; I’d like to pose this question: Got Joy? If not, try some child-like behavior; try wondering about God’s miracles all around you; try feeling His love and protection everywhere you go and in all things you do where He’s invited. Steve and I have two wonderful sons: Andrew, age 15 and Alex (Al), almost 11. As all parents know, kids can be so very different from one another, and, provide a completely different and challenging parental experience. Our Al can be quite precocious at times. Sometimes, he asks so many difficult, yet seemingly simple questions, that we have to enlist the assistance of other parents and church members to answer them all. Here are a couple of the great “Al-ism’s”: Alex is our day-to-day reminder that thinking as a child, with that sort of “outside the box” mentality is a gift from God, and that we too should approach learning and living in a fresh, no-limits, joyful way. Got joy? Reacquire a child’s mind. |
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58th ANNUAL MAY CONVENTION
Berean Bible Students Church 535 East Maple Street Lombard, IL 60148 Phone: (630) 889-1090 "Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life." Revelation 2:10b SATURDAY, May 4, 2002 Chairman: Roy Boswell "Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord! " Philippians 3:1 SUNDAY, May 5, 2002 Chairman: Steve Teunis Accommodations: Jeanne Dalesandro CHILDREN: Ages 3-12 CHILDREN: under 3 - nursery available Saturday afternoon from 1:15 to 5:30, and Sunday morning from 9:00 to 12:30 TEENAGE PROGRAM |
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What is Love?
by Alice Gmiterek Ryden God is love, and that we know Poetry Available A poetry scrapbook written by Alice Gmiterek entitled, “Treasures To Behold” has recently been published. The selections include Bible poems, poems about prayer and peace, and poems about God’s love and care. Many poems also express Alice’s deep appreciation for the beauty of nature. Copies are available upon request by contacting: |