Blog – River's Edge Community Church

It Is True: I Love Books

It Is True: I Love Books

There is something magical about a book. After all, it is just paper and cardboard and ink, but those mysterious words on those wonderful pages touch me deeply. They stir my soul. They enlighten my thoughts. They propel me into action. They draw out deep emotions. They convince me of truth and they set me free to ponder, to believe and to hope. I am so madly in love with books, that I even get excited reading quotes about books. If any of these quotes stir something in you, there can be only one explanation. We are reading soul-mates travelling on a sea of thought and imagination together (and let me just say, thanks for joining me!). Here are five great quotes that touched me (all true, all moving, all magical) … “You are today who you’ll be in five years except for the people you meet and the books

Favorite Authors Make Favorite Books

Favorite Authors Make Favorite Books

I remember two things from first grade. I remember having to write (on a huge sheet of poster-board-sized lined-paper) what we wanted to do when we grew up. We had to give it a title and draw a picture of it. I wanted to join the army, and so I entitled my first essay, “Combat.” The second thing I remember is my teacher informing my parents and I that I would never be a good reader (and definitely not a voracious one). My teacher steered me wrong on both counts. I am not now, nor have I ever been in the army (for God, for country, and for me that was a very good thing), but I did become an insatiable reader. I love books. I love looking at books and buying books and reading books. Now, I have never counted my books, but we have a lot of them.

I Have a Plan! I Can Retire!

I Have a Plan! I Can Retire!

It is the 1870’s in the Old West and you are in trouble. BAD GUYS are either stealing your horses, your land, or your money (they could also be stealing bases because there was a baseball episode). You need help. You need to do something. You need a plan. Thankfully, you are holding a business card that says, “Have Gun—Will Travel.” And before you know it, you’ve hired a gun. But not just any gun, a good gun wielded by a good guy, a knight without armor in a savage land. For six seasons (1957-1963) he was the best western show on TV. In five weeks, I will retire. People keep on saying that, before that happens, I need a plan. I need to do something or else bad guys will steal my joy. My first thought was to be a gun for hire, but I said, “no” (I really

Aesop in the Face

Aesop in the Face

Every once in a while, Aesop across the face is exactly what we need. Today, it comes from a colony of mice. Apparently, after months of fun and games and pilfering, a new cat had come on the scene. And that was a problem. Every day now, the cat would sneak up on a second cousin and hickory, dickory, dock, another mouse no longer needed a clock. The mice decided they needed to do something or face extermination. And so, they called a colony-wide meeting, and every tail showed up. Several mice explained the problem in colorful detail. but no mouse in the house had a solution. Then, a young rodent stepped forward with a brilliant plan. “Given that any mouse with a bit of a head start can outrun a cat,” he said, “all we need is a warning that the cat is approaching. So, let’s attach a bell

Stop! In the Name of Love

Stop! In the Name of Love

Let’s have a quiz. Fill in the blank with the missing word in the song title and, then, for the bonus, fill in the blank with the missing word to discover our topic for today. Who Will _____ The Rain? – Creedence Clearwater Revival I Can’t _____ Loving You – Jim Reeves Don’t ______ Me Now – Queen Don’t ______ Believin’ – Journey Don’t _____ -- Fleetwood Mac Can’t _____ -- Red Hot Chili Peppers Bonus: How Do We ____ Getting in the Box? Bonus Bonus: ____ right now and give yourself a bonus point if you know all six songs. So far in this series, we’ve been overrun by bad news. We have examined our posturing from the moment we betray ourselves, and it has been ugly. As soon as we refuse to love our neighbor and to put their interests above our own (Phil. 2:3-4), even though we

How Far Would You Go to Win?

How Far Would You Go to Win?

Hockey superstitions, you’ve got to love them! Every year, the same thing happens. The two teams that won their conferences are presented their championship trophies (basically, this makes them semi-final winners). They will now go on and play in the finals for the Stanley Cup. But no one or either team will come close to touching those trophies. It is a hockey fact that if you touch it (the lesser trophy), you will never get to touch the Stanley Cup. You can get a team picture with it, but you can’t touch it. Now, if you look at that team photo, you will also notice another superstition—playoff beards. Shaving during the playoffs is bad luck. Looking scruffy during the playoffs apparently isn’t. But superstitions are not just for the playoffs. Lots of players have superstitions about their sticks. Wayne Gretzky wouldn’t let anyone touch his stick after he had taped

From Bad to Worse in Ratland

From Bad to Worse in Ratland

In the 1950’s, the Dayak people in Borneo had a problem. They were experiencing a terrible outbreak of malaria. The World Health Organization decided to help. After assessing the situation, they came up with a plan. To stop the spread of malaria, they needed to stop the mosquitoes. And the way to do that was to spray the area with DDT. And it worked! Soon, dead mosquitoes littered the ground. Now, this was particularly good news for the resident gecko population who loved to munch on a meal of mosquitoes, especially when they didn’t even have to work for their dinner. Mosquitoes were everywhere. Unfortunately, the geckos didn’t realize these mosquitoes were being served with extra zip. As a result, after eating a few mosquitoes, the geckos began to stagger around like they were drunk (they were actually poisoned, but let’s not kill the mood along with the mosquitoes). Now,

And Then Came the Blame

And Then Came the Blame

Blame is a wonderful game (it must be, because we play it all the time!). Now, you just can’t say something like that; you need quotes to back it up. So here are five great quotes about blame (and I wouldn’t blame you if you memorized them because, sooner or later, they will come in handy). “To make a mistake is human, but to blame it on someone else, that’s even more human.” (Anonymous) “The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on.” (Robert Bloch) “I never blame myself when I'm not hitting. I just blame the bat.” (Yogi Berra) “There’s man all over for you, blaming on his boots the fault of his feet.” (Samuel Beckett) “To err is human, to blame someone else is politics.” (Hubert H. Humphrey) In short, this post is all your fault. And if you want to

Green with Self-Deception

Green with Self-Deception

I loved The Incredible Hulk TV series (the one with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno). “Dr. David Banner, physician, scientist—searching for a way to tap into the hidden strength that all humans have. Then, an accidental overdose of gamma radiation alters his body chemistry. And now, when David Banner grows angry or outraged, a startling metamorphosis occurs.” Let’s be honest here; startling doesn’t come close. Here David Banner is—nice guy, talented, smart, and generally soft-spoken. He is a guy you would want as a next-door neighbor unless your dog loves to get into your neighbors’ trash. If that’s the case, look out. You don’t want to make David Banner green. True, the Hulk may be incredible, but the reality is that he can only do one thing well. He smashes things. And yet, in the morning, he will have forgotten all about it. He will wake up wearing ugly purple

Hiding in Plain Sight

Hiding in Plain Sight

Last week, we looked at the likely possibility that Mark’s ending is lost and gone forever. I would agree with the lost part, but what if it was (and here’s the important part) not gone forever? That’s what we want discuss today, but in order for it to make any sense, we have to reiterate what we said two weeks ago in the script. Matthew “used” Mark’s gospel and oftentimes imported Mark’s exact wording so that if you compare the parallel accounts in Mark and Matthew, you will see a huge amount of similarity. And while I agree that “copied” is such a strong word to describe what Matthew (and Luke) often did to Mark’s gospel, it is awfully close. Let me give you a few examples. Here’s a case where Matthew follows Mark almost word for word. Mark 13:5-7 – “And Jesus began to say to them, ‘See to it

Dreadful Sorry, Clementine

Dreadful Sorry, Clementine

I’m sure you remember the song, “Clementine.” Who could forget that chorus: “Oh, my darling. Oh, my darling. Oh, my darling Clementine. You are lost and gone forever. Dreadful sorry, Clementine.” Of course, you remember it. It is one of the top 100 western songs of all time—all time! “In a cavern, in a canyon; excavating for a mine, dwelt a miner, a forty-niner, and his daughter, Clementine.” Huckleberry Hound introduced the song to me (the Huckleberry Hound Show also introduced us to Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo!). “Light she was and like a feather, and her shoes were number nine. Herring boxes without topses, sandals were for Clementine.” It was those size-nine feet in sandals that did Clementine in. One morning, she got a splinter in her toe (if only she had footwear that had topses!), tripped, fell into the river, and drowned. “Ruby lips above the water, blowing bubbles

They Did What?

They Did What?

We all know that Alexander had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. It was so bad that, according to Judith Viorst, Alexander wanted to move to Australia. But that is not all we know. We also know that Mark had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad ending. Unfortunately, we can’t ship Mark 16 off to the Land Down Under and hope that all our problems go away. No, we have to do something. We already know the extended version (vv. 9-20) is not authentic, and we made a pretty good case that verse 8 is not as bad of an ending as we might have thought at first blush (just like calling our favorite country to the south, “Straya,” is not as bad of a name as we originally thought). But there are two other options that we have not yet considered. But to grasp those arguments,

Now, That Is an Ending!

Now, That Is an Ending!

Horrible endings. We’ve all read them, watched them and experienced them. Agatha Christie made us endure page after page on a train, trying to figure out who did it, only to discover that everyone did it. We saved Private Ryan only for him to be consumed at the end of the movie, not with gratitude, but with a deep fear that he hadn’t earned the right to be saved (don’t you think he should have worried about that decades ago?). Tony Soprano was sitting at a booth enjoying a nice meal and then it all went black; and by “all,” I mean the whole series. And we won’t even bring up my time with my first girlfriend which indeed ended very badly. Maybe even horribly. And that is the point: We’ve all encountered bad endings. The question is, do we encounter one at the end of Mark? Let’s admit it

Missing the Mark

Missing the Mark

Quick, name one of the absolute worst movies ever made. If your list included any of the following three classics, you win. Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964) or They Saved Hitler’s Brain (1968). Why? In Plan 9, Bela Lugosi (the star of the movie) died midmovie and was replaced by his body-double who didn’t look anything like him, but he “fooled” the audience by covering his face in every scene with his cape. Classic! The name of the movie alone should land Santa and the Martians on this list; and if that is not enough, the plot is also horrific. And any movie where Hitler’s dead, severed head hopes to rule over a new Third Reich from South America can’t, by definition alone, be any good. All of these could qualify as the worst movie ever. Quicker, name one of the

The Little Things Are Infinitely the Most Important

The Little Things Are Infinitely the Most Important

There are Sherlock Holmes’ quotes and Sherlock Holmes’ QUOTES. Some prefer, “The game is afoot” (The Adventure of the Speckled Band). Others choose, “Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth” (The Sign of Four). Others enjoy citing these words when they, once again, know the correct answer, “It is my business to know what other people don’t know” (The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle). But for me, the greatest Sherlock Holmes quote comes from the story of “Silver Blaze.” Inspector Gregory can’t figure the case out, but he realizes Sherlock has seen something that he hasn’t. And so, he asks, "You consider that to be important?" Sherlock replies, “Exceedingly so." Gregory is still at a loss: “Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?” Sherlock answers: “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” Gregory is exasperated, “But

Not Where It Is Supposed to Be

Not Where It Is Supposed to Be

Luther the dog was all fur, fun and family. He was a Bernese-Mountain-Dog-and-White-German-Shepherd mix, and he topped the scale at 120 pounds (at the time, our two boys combined didn’t weigh that much!), and most of that was pure love. See, Luther loved to play, go for walks, cuddle up on the couch with us and let the boys crawl all over him. In other words, he was part of the family. But that was the problem. When we weren’t with Luther, Luther went bonkers. Luther didn’t suffer from separation anxiety. He suffered from separation panic. And when a 120-pound dog panics, a dog who is alone in your house, you can be sure there will be damage in his wake. A few examples. When left alone, Luther ate a library book, a plant, a pillow, a couch cushion, a green-magic marker, a baby-gift for a friend, three-quarters of a

An Eye for the Difference

An Eye for the Difference

I grew up reading the Swedish newspaper. Technically that’s true, but it probably wouldn’t stand up in court, especially if it was a Swedish court. The truth is, I can’t read Swedish, but I can comprehend Swedish cartoons. And honestly, that was the only thing I was interested in reading. See, in every edition on page 4, there was always a spot-the-difference game where there were two almost identical pictures; and we, the readers, were to find ten differences between the two. Now, that sounds easy, but try doing it in Swedish! In any case, it was there that I first developed an eye for differences, but I had no idea that skill would be necessary to read the Gospels, but it absolutely is. I first saw how necessary this skill was when I purchased a book for my Synoptics class in seminary. The book was aptly named, Synopsis of

Seven “Quote” Reasons to Love the Prophets

Seven “Quote” Reasons to Love the Prophets

You may find it strange, but I didn’t always love the prophets. Before I graduated from seminary, I would have listed my favorite three Old Testament books as Deuteronomy (my MA thesis was “The Form and Function of the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32), Ecclesiastes and Genesis (not a prophet, major or minor, in the group!). But then I read Abraham Heschel’s, The Prophets: An Introduction (1962, Harper Torchbooks) and that changed everything. His words made the prophets come alive for me and I fell in love with them (granted, more so Isaiah than Obadiah, but Obadiah is still fun to say). That was many years ago, but I have never looked back. And that got me thinking, maybe a little Heschel will move you to love the prophets, too. And a little Heschel we can do. As the essayist Joseph Epstein once said: “I believe it was Gayelord Hauser,

Seven More from the Prophets

Seven More from the Prophets

Consider three sets of movie quotes. Here is set one. All three should be very familiar to you. I’ll give you the quote, you provide the name of the movie. First quote: “I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse." Second quote: "Go ahead, make my day." Third quote: “There’s no crying in baseball!” If you said, The Godfather, Sudden Impact and A League of their Own, you win the first category. Here is set two. All three of these quotes are related because all three are angry statements. Again, you get to name the movie. Fourth quote: “I'm walking here! I'm walking here!" Fifth quote: “You can't handle the truth!" Sixth quote: “I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!" If you said Midnight Cowboy, A Few Good Men and Wizard of OZ, you have won the second set. Here is the third set. What connects

Seven from the Prophets

Seven from the Prophets

Roughly 16,000. That is how many football players are eligible for the NFL draft each year. 16,000; but only 250 or so are selected. 2,000-3,000 prospects are considered for the seven-round NHL draft each year, but only 224 are selected. Apparently, 140,000 players are eligible for the MLB draft each year, but out of that number, only 600-700 are selected. Now, if you were a major league general manager, choosing the right prospects out of a field that big should not be a problem. Why then, out of a field of 23,145 Old Testament verses should choosing seven verses be so tough? For the past seven weeks we have been looking at Christopher Wright’s book, The Old Testament in Seven Sentences (IVP Academic, Downers Grove, IL, 2019). When I purchased the book, I thought it would be a fun thought experiment that would definitely stretch the imagination, but would ultimately