Catching Wild Pigs

A friend forwarded this story to me and I found it thought provoking.

There was a chemistry professor in a large college that had some exchange students in the class.
One day while the class was in the lab, the professor noticed one young man, an exchange student, who kept rubbing his back and stretching as if his back hurt. The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country's government and install a new communist regime.
In the midst of his story, he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked: "Do you know how to catch wild pigs?"
The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said that it was no joke. "You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come every day to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, which are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat that free corn again. You then slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd. Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity." The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening in America. The government keeps pushing us toward Communism/Socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax exemptions, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, etc., while we continually lose our freedoms, just a little at a time.
Quote for today: "The problems we face today are there because the people who work for a living are now outnumbered by those who vote for a living."--Anonymous

90 Days Thru the Bible (Book Review)

This book is a rare hybrid.  It is a 90 day devotional -- nothing uncommon about that.  And it is a Bible overview (again, nothing unusual -- most study Bible contain book introductions).  But the marriage of devotional to Bible overview is a surprisingly challenging relationship.  No wonder that so few attempt it.

It leads to proportions that seem strange: single-chapter Philemon gets the same amount of time (one day) that 34-chapter Deuteronomy does.  Some stories get entirely passed over.  And how can you adequately cover 150 Psalms in 5 days?


It gives us less facts about the arrangement and relationship of the pieces of the Bible than we would expect from an overview, and less application than we would expect from a devotional.  There is no bait from humorous stories, poems, or pithy statements like "Our Daily Bread" includes.  No pictures or charts.
 
But in a day when we have grown accustomed to adding spices to the Bible before we'll eat it, this book is a refreshing attempt to demonstrate that the Bible can stand alone as tasty and perfectly nourishing meal.  To continue the food analogy, some authors can teach you how to properly "cook" the Bible for yourself, while others provide TV dinners.  But this book is something like a prepared salad: fast, but healthy.  It requires chewing.  Congratulations to the author, Chris Tiegreen of Walk Thru the Bible, for achieving such a rare balance.

I got this book for free from Tyndale's Blog Network in exchange for writing this review, but my review was not required to be positive.

Quick, Vital, Free Online AED/CPR training

Would you know what to do if someone suddenly collapsed in front of you?  This web site combines very realistic videos with choice points that allow you to see what happens if you do various wrong (and right) things when a man suddenly has a heart attack in front of you.  (One of your options is even "freak out"!)

It doesn't take long, and it's very confidence-building.  It might help you to save someone's life.  Or at least prevent you from freaking out!

HeartRescueNow.com

Why Did Jesus Come?

Last Sunday I got to go to jail to help do a church service for some men there.  In praying about what to share with them from the Bible, I got the idea to do a short survey of the Scripture verses that talk about Jesus' reasons for coming.  Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the facts of His coming (shepherds, angels, dreams, wise men) that we neglect the purpose of His coming. 

I was surprised at how many verses directly talk about reasons for Christmas.  But rather than tell you what those reasons are, I'm going to give you the same verses I went through with the men in jail.  There may be even more that I didn't find. You can dig out and enjoy their meaning for yourself.

Matthew 9:13
Mark 10:45
Luke 19:10
John 3:17
John 6:38
John 9:39
John 18:37
2 Corinthians 8:9
Galatians 4:4,5
Hebrews 2:14-18
Hebrews 9:26
1 John 3:5,8

Note: for a great short book on a somewhat wider topic, I highly recommend John Piper's 50 Reasons Jesus Came to Die.

The Innkeeper -- a touching Christmas poem by John Piper

This video of John Piper reading his poem "The Innkeeper" will move you, and if you are hurting, it will encourage you. You can also download a free PDF copy of the book.

Imagine There's a Lennon

Rock star John Lennon was murdered on this day in 1980.  Ray Comfort has just released a great 34 minute exploration of Lennon's life and beliefs.  Please take time to watch it and share it with your friends.  Imagine what John Lennon's life might have been like if he had heard and embraced the true gospel of Jesus.

Training in Biblical Counseling Coming to the Verde Valley

Interested in learning how to do Biblical counseling? Counseling is not just for “professionals” – all of us counsel each other, all the time, mostly "off the cuff" in informal settings. The question isn’t “Will you counsel?” but “Is your counsel based on the Bible, or based on your own thinking?” Training from the Biblical Counseling Training Center of Arizona is coming to Cottonwood. The training will be held in six, 8 hour segments on the first and third Saturdays of January, February and March (a total of 48 hours of instruction). Click this link for a typical schedule of the training.

The training does have a cost: $375 for individuals or $500 for married couples. (Our church is offering financial assistance to our members who are interested in taking the course but can't afford it. Perhaps your church would do the same for you?) There is also some required reading. If you’re interested or have questions, contact me ASAP and I can point you in the right direction.  You can also contact the BCTC directly.