Reading my Bible made me angry this week. It doesn’t happen often, but some teachings are hard to accept. So here’s what I learned, from Luke 17:7-10.

“Which of you, having a slave plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come immediately and sit down to eat’?
“But will he not say to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat, and properly clothe yourself and serve me while I eat and drink; and afterward you may eat and drink’?
“He does not thank the slave because he did the things which were commanded, does he?
“So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.’”

James 1:26 says that if anyone doesn’t bridle their tongue, their religion is worthless.

So do you bridle your tongue? Or do you fence it? Or does it roam free?

There are two reasons to build a fence. One is to keep things in; the other is to keep things out. When we’re talking about horses, fences keep them in the pasture and out of the dangers of the wild. So if James had written to “fence your tongue,” we’d be good if we just never said anything bad - if we kept ourselves from gossip, malice, deceit, and all unrighteousness (Romans 1:29). But he didn’t. He wrote that we must bridle our tongues.

Today at a Saturday morning study with some guys, one of them mentioned the Engels Scale, of which I had never heard. So I looked it up. Basically, it’s just a number line applied to a person’s receptiveness to the Gospel.

     +5 Stewardship
    +4 Communion with God
   +3 Conceptual and behavioral growth
  +2 Incorporation into Body
 +1 Post-decision evaluation
New birth
 -1 Repentance and faith in Christ
  -2 Decision to act
   -3 Personal problem recognition
    -4 Positive attitude towards Gospel
     -5 Grasp implications of Gospel
      -6 Awareness of fundamentals of Gospel
       -7 Initial awareness of Gospel
        -8 Awareness of supreme being, no knowledge of Gospel

I’m not entirely sure how useful it is, except to inform one’s personal ministry, but as a Christian I believe that part of my purpose is to influence others to accept Christ and become disciples (Matthew 28:19-20). If I can understand where a person stands in relation to the Gospel, it makes it easier to know my role in my relationship with them.

Everyone else has already seen this I’m sure, but I may as well put it here too. Bill O’Reilly, Brit Hume, Tiger Woods, and Christ.

As I was driving back to work today after a stop at a computer parts shop, I was wondering if the shop owner I’d just spoken to was as much of a nerd as he seemed. Did he play Everquest?

And I had a thought. I sometimes treat Christianity like a role-playing game. Like I might not be a Christian at work. Or I might not be a Christian on Saturday. I’m a only Christian when I’m at Church or at praise band rehearsal. It’s like I waited all week to play ChristQuest on Sunday morning with my guild. I don’t want to be one of those weird guys who dresses up as their character or really gets into it, you know? Heck, I don’t even talk about the game except to other people who play. I’d never mention Christ to a non-Christian - he’d think I was a nerd!

I’ve struggled with this post (and it’s a couple of days late) because I really don’t know what to do for resolutions this year… 2009 was the first year I ever made resolutions, and putting them online turned out to be pretty good motivation, so I wanted to do it again. But I have no idea what to resolve for 2010. I could go the comedy way, but I want to actually accomplish something. So I’ve searched teh Interwebs and taken whatever I can find.

But I don’t even know what it means to serve money.

No, really, what on earth does that mean (Matthew 6:24)? Apparently I’m not the first to ask the question, and I think that this article gets at least this much right: it’s a warning,

against the kind of storing up that is a symptom of greed and acquisitiveness, of the love of money, and a love of the independence from God that it seems to allow.