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I don’t watch much TV at all. There are a few shows I follow. Three, to be precise. And when Amber has the TV on I normally don’t pay too much attention to it. There’s one show, however, that I find strangely fascinating.

I’m referring to America’s Next Top Model.

I’ve no idea why, really. I don’t know the contestants. I don’t watch it everytime it airs. Heck, I can’t even be certain I’m watching the same season. But it appalls and fascinates me all at once. The show, like the beauty of the people on it, is merely skin deep.

Besides, Tyra’s hot.

Amber finds the whole thing amusing. I don’t follow it, exactly; it’s more like watching a train wreck. But watch it I do, and I really haven’t the foggiest idea why.

I came across an article yesterday about Nixzmary Brown. Her mother and step-father and charged with killing her. Specifically, the step-father is accused of killing this little girl “with a blow to the head while punishing her for stealing some yogurt.”

I could go on for days about the senseless cruelty this girl was subjected to, but what struck me was the callousness of the news site containing the article. There was a picture of this poor girl captioned with, “Authorities say Nixzmary Brown, who died on Jan. 11, 2006, was bound with tape, tethered to a chair and forced to use a cat litter box.” Underneath this was a list of “Related Slideshows.” And what, according to wcbstv.com, is related to a story of a child tortured and killed?

• Auto Show ‘08 Rolls Into Detroit
• Top 10 Most Popular Dog Breeds In U.S.
• Openly Gay Celebrities
• Celebrity Bump Watch
• Keira Knightley: Then & Now
• Jessica Simpson: Then To Now
• Hooray For The Red, White And Zooom!
• 2008 Presidential Hopefuls
• Zoo Babies: Cuteness Unleashed

To the side was an ad asking if I was paying too much for my car insurance. Below the text of the article were more links to stupid crap, followed by more ads.

We need to keep in mind when reading news, or watching it on TV, that they’re business is not news, but making money. And that money comes primarily through ads. So if they need to entertain us with stories of which actresses are pregnant, or try and shock us with stories about murdered kids, so be it. Death gets the views, too.

And I know: they have to pay the bills. But basic human decency should override that at some point. If you were to ask them why they didn’t publish pictures of the girl’s murdered body at the crime scene, or images of the Nixzmary’s dead, naked body on the autopsy table, do you know what the likely reply would be?

“That would be in bad taste.”

As if they know. As if any of us do. Afterall, they wouldn’t puts these ads up unless they thought we would be likely to buy insurance after reading about torture and murder.

Screenshot of the article in case it goes away.

I’ve been thinking about death a lot recently. Not in a morbid way, but as a way of assessing where I am and what I’ve done.

Last October my grandfather died. I preached his funeral on what would have been his 75th birthday. As I type this I’m 31. Going by this, I would most of the way through the second quarter, with the band getting ready to come out on the field.

Amber’s Aunt Ginger died from cancer on October 24 of this year. She was 60. That would have me in the second half already; somehow I missed the band altogether. Then this weekend a friend told me that one of his wife’s cousins had died suddenly at 33 — game almost over for me.

No one knows, of course, how long I’ll live. But it’s a useful exercise, I think, to consider: If I had two years left to live, what have I done worth doing? What will I do with the time that remains?

Don’t waste your life.

I’ve always been a book nerd. When I was in elementary school my parents discovered I loved to read. So they bought be books. Lots of them. They figured, hey, good habit, let’s encourage it.

When I was in my teens my mom bought me a book about World War II. I was fourteen, maybe fifteen, and had never really learned about this thing called the Holocaust (hooray, public school). Even though I don’t remember the name of this book, I credit it with what has become a lifelong love of history.

It wasn’t a book of generalities. It contained stories of individuals and families: “This is what happened to my parents.” “This is when I watched my brother die.” It wasn’t possible to look at the victims as a group. It was extremely personal, and painful.

We forget that things don’t really happen to groups; they happen to individuals. The poor in America aren’t a homogeneous blob. They’re people: mothers, fathers, kids. I fear that the American church has largely lost sight of this.

Painful as it is, we need to break out of this. We need to take the time to meet people who need help, get to know them, invest in their lives. If we claim to follow Christ, we can’t get away from the fact that he didn’t send a representative to give a handout. He came himself and paid the cost himself. We need to do likewise.

Amber read 3 John last night, so I figured I’d go over it a bit at lunch so we could talk about it. Verse 4 really struck me:

have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth

I sincerely pray my ministry reflects this: Not only having spiritual children, and not only having them walk in the truth, but having that as my greatest joy.

Against that is the bad example of Diotrephes, found in verses 9 and 10. He loves to be the one in charge and in view, speaks nonsense against church leaders, and will not support missionaries. I pray I will never be guilty of such things, lest someone like John come along and point out my misdeeds before all.

Solid peace cannot be enjoyed where there is no true grace; first grace, then peace. Peace without grace is mere stupidity; but grace may be true where there is for a time no actual peace

from Matthew Henry’s Commentary on 1 Peter 1:2

Phil Johnson has had some good posts on modern day prophecy. What’s entertaining — and hardly surprising — is that people who believe in modern day prophets just plain don’t like him pointing out the bad track record of these folks.

He hasn’t even gotten to proof texts for one position or another. He’s just said, “Their accuracy sucks,” (rough summary).

Personally, I’ve seen too many “oh, no, this is what I meant”-type prophecies to put much stock in it.

Updated: fixed link. oops

Looking again at Psalm 37:4:

As I wrote this morning, we are not here being told that God will give us anything we want because we say he’s delightful. Instead, we find that, by seeking after God, we are assured of finding him, and thus finding our fulfillment.

There’s a weird command here, though: How can you be commanded to find delight in something? Isn’t the idea of delight the very antithesis of command: Delight flows from a spontaneous feeling, not a sense of duty.

The issue here is not that this comes as a command from a parent: “You’ll eat your broccoli and you’ll like it!” Well, maybe there’s nothing particular pleasing to me about broccoli. Therefore it may not be right for me to like — find delight in — it. This is not what we find here, however. This is a statement of reality.

We will find nothing worth more than God. Unfortunately, a lot of Christians don’t see this. Since we spend so much time focusing on what we want, we only come to God for what we can get from him. This is the moral equivalent of telling a girl you love her so she’ll sleep with you. It works on some people, but not on God.

God is supremely valuable. He is supremely delightful. Nothing — absolutely nothing! — can compare to his worth.

We must place our focus on God. Anything else is idolatry. Focus on God himself, and not what we think we can get from him. Seek after him, delight in him, and discover your fulfillment in him, and him alone.

It seems to me that this verse contains an odd command, and is often misunderstood. Let’s look at the misunderstanding first.

What is God saying here? I have often heard it used by the name-it-claim-it bunch to say, “If you love God, he’ll give you what you want.” People focus in on that “God will give you stuff” part and ignore what the verse actually says.

The Bible is fairly clear on this: God is not Santa Claus. Some people believe that, if they’re good enough (ie on the good boys and girls list) they will get everything on their wishlist. The same sort of misunderstanding is done with James 4:2:

“If you just ask God,” they say, “You’ll get what you want.” Unfortunately that’s not even close to what James was saying. Let’s look at it in context:

Looks a bit different now, doesn’t it? James isn’t saying God is a vending machine. He’s saying that unanswered prayers are a result of 1) not asking or 2) asking for selfish reasons. He follows this up by saying such things show friendship with the world. Put differently, it shows that our focus is not on God. If my friendship is with — my focus is on — the world, I am standing in oppossition to God.

Think of it this way: Imagine that the world is to the east of you, God to the west. To whatever extent you turn your face to the world, you turn your back on God. This is the nature of selfishness.

Returning to Psalm 34, let’s be careful not to make the same mistake. Let’s not think for one moment that God is so starved for attention that, if we say we delight in him, he’ll reward us with whatever we ask.

So, if not that, what is God saying here? I believe it is the same thing said in other places:

If we seek after God, we will find him. If we want to know him, we will know him, for he will reveal himself to those who follow after him.

If we make him our delight, we will have our heart’s desire.

This is the heart of the misunderstanding: What the psalmist is driving at is simply that we ought to make God the desire of our heart. Every need, every desire we have will have its proper fulfillment in him.

What, now, of this odd command I mentioned? It is this: How can you be commanded to delight in something? Lord willing, I’ll come back to this when I have more time.