Zacchaeus

Remember the story of Zacchaeus? I heard it again today during our worship service. It's one of those almost "forgettable" accounts in the Bible about a man touched by Jesus in Luke 19.

As a kid we sang "Zacchaeus was wee little man...", but Zacchaeus was not just short, but was also a person that was governed by the will of Satan. He wanted to meet Jesus and once that happened... Have you ever wondered what happened on Satan's end that day? That day, Satan lost and lost big. Imagine a large corporation just finding out that one of their biggest clients just broke off from them and went to their competitor. This was bad news, and hard to take.

Here's how it might have went when Satan heard the news from one of his assistants:

Assistant: "Sir, we...er...have a problem."
Satan: "What's going on, can't you see I'm busy?"
Assistant: "We've lost Zacchaeus"
Satan: "What do you mean by 'LOST'? I just talked to him the other day and he was fine. A bit distracted, but nothing out of the ordinary."
Assistant: "We lost him to...um...Jesus."
Satan: "Nonsense, Zacchaeus is one of our best and oldest clients, have you tried calling him?"
Assistant: "He's not answering his phone, in fact, all we get is a recording saying that the line is been disconnected."
Satan: "Oh, this is no big deal, have you sent some agents to remind him of his past?"
Assistant: "Of course! We sent our best men and we thought we had him for a minute but he just told them to go away."
Satan: (Now pacing)"Watch your tone with me. What about taking things away from him? That usually works."
Assistant: "Forget it. He's already done it himself, he's given almost all of the stuff you gave him back to Jesus and others that he has taken from in the past."
Satan: "Ahh, we'll just wait him out, we have time. He'll come back after he sees how hard it is and the stuff he misses."
Assistant: "I hope you are right, if Jesus keeps this up he's going to put us out of business."
Satan: "Yeah, well at least we still have Saul of Tarsus..."

Lightbulb! (or "Church of Christ Glasses")

In cartoons, when someone has an idea they get a lightbulb over their head shining with inspiration or revelation. That happened to me Sunday morning during Bible class...I just wish I could say that it was inspiration that prompted the light.

In this case, it was revelation...

The teacher (which happens to be one of our evangelists) was leading us in a study of 1 Timothy 2:9-15.

"I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.

A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing–if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.

He read the scripture and then asked for comments. A man behind me said something to the effect of; women were new at this. They had not been able to participate in worship and Paul was instructing them on how to conduct themselves as they did it. I added that Paul, throughout his ministry, was a major advocate of freeing women of spirtual bondage. I also added that women of that time could be married or sell themselves, those were their options. They were not allowed to even speak to men in public. Women, unlike men, did not have experience in public worship, Paul was telling women the same thing that men of that time already knew.

The teacher quickly, (and politely) told me he did not agree with me. He re-read the scripture and just stated that women were supposed to be silent in public worship. He even agreed that the Bible tells us that women prayed and prophesied in the name of the Lord, but that this passage tells them to be quiet in worship.

At this point, if I were a cartoon character, the lightbulb would have appeared over my head.

All of my life, I have used the Bible to prove what I have been taught at Church. Whenever I opened it up I corrupted God's message by reading it through "Church of Christ Glasses". If I could read a passage and prove something that someone had told me in Bible Class or at Church then it must be true! The teacher was just doing the same thing. I shouldn't be upset (even though I was a little) or mad, but try to help him by influencing him over time. I was were he was for a long time.

It comes from years of practice and has been honed to a perfectly tuned machine.