Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Greetings, dear people.

Beautiful morning again…pleasantly cool. Becki and I did our walk/jog routine. Then we drove both our vehicles into town and dropped off the 97 Camry at a shop for service and troubleshooting. A “CHECK ENGINE” light is on…and we’d like to see if they could identify the source of an engine oil leak. We came home in my 92 Dodge truck. We stopped to check out a Dodge truck sitting by the road with a FOR SALE sign on it. $34K. Wow! If I sold my truck right now, I doubt I could get more than $5K. But I can’t imagine that that truck could achieve any more work than mine does. So you can guess my level of temptation.

I had expected a van to show up here from Teen Challenge so I could apply some graphics…but it hasn’t turned up yet. I may shift my attention over to sawmilling.

Have a blessed day.

Love, Dad/Ray.

So, which came first?—the chicken or the egg? My biased Biblical worldview doesn’t hesitate to answer: The chicken came first. In fact, not just one chicken, but two—not just the egg-laying hen, but the hen-chasing rooster. It takes two to tango. God created them male and female, programmed them, and said, in so many words, “OK, chickens, I’ll let you take it from here. Let’s see what you can do.” It wasn’t long before the second essential happened—soon there was a nest of eggs. I’m very narrow with my view that the entire phenomenon of male and female distinctions and attractions is God’s idea. Furthermore, I don’t think humans are supposed to be messing around with that basic order—trying to reverse those distinctions and attractions. It seems to me that we are forced to yield to a kind of mental disorder in order to accommodate those with this mental disorder—those who think we should be messing around and reversing.

Within this first half of Psalm 119, no two themes are more outstanding to me than GOD’S WORD and PASSION. Similar to the God-intended blending of male and female, it’s not important to determine which came first or which is most important. The point is that neither one is able to function alone without the other so as to reproduce success and ongoing life. GOD’S WORD, therefore, is sterile in its value for me personally without my personal PASSION—without my positive response to it. And my personal PASSION is sterile without the objective and guidance of GOD’S WORD.

It’s not difficult to identify those essential ingredients in the FOCUS VERSES: “How can a young man keep his way pure?” Or, “How can anyone (not just young men), for that matter, live successful and clean before a Holy God?” The answer is clear—“By living according to your word.” There’s the GOD’S WORD ingredient. Then the psalmist adds, “I will seek you with all my heart.” There’s the PASSION factor. Bingo! Now we’re dealing with “Wonderful Words of Life.”