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The Smith Slant
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text disable_pattern=”true” align=”left” margin_bottom=”0″]We are halfway through 2015, and I am with my family vacationing on the Carolina beaches. At the end of 2014, I shared a few photos and quotes from my experiences throughout the year. Here are a few more for you, along with some more words from wise men and women. If you want to see more, you can visit The Smith Slant, my website for personal photos, Sunday School lessons and other thoughts and ramblings. I hope you are having as lovely a summer as the Smith family. Blessings to you all. [/vc_column_text][vc_media_grid style=”all” items_per_page=”10″ element_width=”12″ gap=”5″ button_style=”rounded” button_color=”blue” button_size=”md” arrows_design=”none” arrows_position=”inside” arrows_color=”blue” paging_design=”radio_dots” paging_color=”grey”…
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On An Even Keel
A friend asked me once, “What do you think your best contribution will be? And for what would you like to be remembered?” I did not need time to mull the answer over: “I have been a Sunday School teacher for the largest part of my life now, and other than being a husband and father, I think that is the answer to your question. I am a Sunday School teacher.” Granted, it doesn’t always feel that way when the alarm goes off at 5:00 every Sunday morning. That’s when I put together the notes I’ve worked on all day Saturday. Some mornings it feels like a calling, and other…
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Paul in Corinth
You know the old saying, “Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never harm me.” For some of us with a particular kind of pride, it’s the opposite that is true. We would rather be beaten than to look foolish or ignorant or to fail in public. The fear of humiliation is worse than that of physical harm. Not everyone understands it. Just those afflicted with it. It’s common among speakers, teachers, pastors, intellectuals and professors. Give me sticks and stones any day. Maybe Paul had a bit of that as he had no qualms recounting how he had been abused physically. But as this chapter opens…
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A Fool’s Errand
In the Baptist church where I grew up, we heard rumors of “intellectuals” lurking in the world beyond our safe fellowship who relished the opportunity to attack our faith. While we had never met one, we knew that one day we would, and it would be the fight of our young lives. We had to be prepared. We had to have a plan and a set of responses. Fortunately, just as David served as our model for slaying giants and Samson for bringing down pagans, we had Paul’s confrontation with the philosophers of Athens as the way to best the intellectuals later in life. We studied his brilliance in the…
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A Fool's Errand
In the Baptist church where I grew up, we heard rumors of “intellectuals” lurking in the world beyond our safe fellowship who relished the opportunity to attack our faith. While we had never met one, we knew that one day we would, and it would be the fight of our young lives. We had to be prepared. We had to have a plan and a set of responses. Fortunately, just as David served as our model for slaying giants and Samson for bringing down pagans, we had Paul’s confrontation with the philosophers of Athens as the way to best the intellectuals later in life. We studied his brilliance in the…
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It’s Been A Long Time Coming
Guy Carawan died earlier this month at the Highlander Center in Tennessee. He had been the director there for many years. While an accomplished musician, folklorist and collector of traditional hymns and songs, his most lasting contribution is probably one he launched almost accidentally. “O Sanctissima” is a Roman Catholic hymn composed in 1792. Beethoven arranged the hymn as “No. 4” in his “Verschiedene Volkslieder” and the tune made its way to the United States. Eventually it was rewritten and published by a black preacher in Philadelphia, which led to its use by workers in a 1945 strike against the American Tobacco Company cigar factory. Zilphia Horton, a musician and…
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It's Been A Long Time Coming
Guy Carawan died earlier this month at the Highlander Center in Tennessee. He had been the director there for many years. While an accomplished musician, folklorist and collector of traditional hymns and songs, his most lasting contribution is probably one he launched almost accidentally. “O Sanctissima” is a Roman Catholic hymn composed in 1792. Beethoven arranged the hymn as “No. 4” in his “Verschiedene Volkslieder” and the tune made its way to the United States. Eventually it was rewritten and published by a black preacher in Philadelphia, which led to its use by workers in a 1945 strike against the American Tobacco Company cigar factory. Zilphia Horton, a musician and…
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The Council at Jerusalem
As Luke tells us, after Paul’s conversion he spends two years in Arabia and then a year in Damascus and Tarsus before Barnabas is sent to look for him and bring him to Antioch where they spend a year teaching until they are commissioned as missionaries. Together, they spend the next ten years traveling and planting churches. They periodically return to Antioch to give reports of their hardships and their success. Throughout those ten years Paul has run-ins and struggles with Jewish believers (the Judaizers) who insist that new believers be circumcised and follow the dietary laws. So, at the end of ten years or fourteen years after his conversion,…
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Thou Foolish Philanthropist
These six assumptions kept returning to our conversations about how tech people think—and what they will hopefully bring to the practice of philanthropy.
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Paul and Barnabas in Lystra
After Paul’s conversion, he spent three years in Arabia, Damascus and Tarsus until Barnabas went to look for him and brought him to Antioch where together they taught great numbers of people for a whole year. Afterwards, they were set apart and sent off on their first journey. The audiences were mixed, Jewish and Gentile, until we come to the passage this morning where Paul speaks to his first completely Gentile audience. They are not sophisticated like the Athenians but no doubt Paul begins as he usually does. He begins with where they are and their frame of reference. But this time he is totally surprised by the results. Acts…
