Author: Jon Partlow

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Blessed Assurance or 101 Things to Do with a Blanket

“I found it!” Like the shepherd who found the lost sheep, or the widow who found the lost coin, I had found it. 

I had been visiting my parents in their new home, shortly after they moved in, and was going through boxes and boxes of “treasures” when I found two precious items. The first was my dad’s antique Lionel Train set he had as a little boy. Dad thought the movers had “sticky” fingers and knew the set was gone forever. He was relieved to know I had “found it.” 

However, the big find wasn’t the antique train set, but my childhood stuffed Snoopy plush doll. True, Linus had his famous security blanket to comfort him when he felt lonely, anxious, fearful, or vulnerable. I had Snoopy. Linus’ blanket was versatile. He had 101 things he could do with it: it was a Shepherd’s scarf, an ascot, a sport coat, felt for his new pool table, a kite, and to protect himself, a whip. I had a Snoopy doll I got for Christmas when I was 3, and I slept with him every night. He brought enough comfort to me that when I entered the hospital for an ulcer (I was 10 years old) I wanted him with me. (He was so worn and dirty with love, that mom was ashamed to bring him to the hospital, so she bought me a new “knock-off” Snoopy instead). 

Except for Franklin, Linus may have been the most adjusted child among the Peanuts Gang, despite his constant need for his security blanket. He always went into withdrawals when it was wash day, or when grandma threatened to take the blanket away from him. When Charlie Brown chastised Linus about his need for the blanket, Linus quickly responded, pointing out, that while he needed a blanket, Charlie Brown needed a “psychiatrist” for his insecurities.

The older I get, the more brilliant I find Schulz. His assessment of humanity, combined with his own projected feelings, were spot on. In a world filled with danger and uncertainty, both from within and from without, we long for comfort and security. We fear ourselves and our own inadequacies. We fear that our nation is tearing itself apart. We fear that since our world is smaller, the terrorist attacks feel like they’re now in our own neighborhoods. 

Certainly, the anxieties and insecurities of life carry over into our relationship with God. Our view of God, and our understanding of doctrine, either heightens our anxiety or calms it. If we believe that God is looking to condemn us, we probably need a blanket, or at least a stuff plush doll. If we believe that God is gracious and compassionate and forgiving, then we simply rest in his assurance of his love for us. 

The Fellowship of believers I’m associated with has struggled in the security section of Scripture. Since we believe that salvation can be lost (an Armenian view of 1 Cor. 10:18-22; Heb. 2:1-4), we tend to believe that salvation cannot be assured either. We cannot find the middle road between the extremes. Since we’ve focused so much on establishing the “right doctrine,” many feel they cannot trust their baptism was done correctly; hindsight tells them they didn’t get it right the first time.

I once re-baptized a friend who was in her late thirties. We met and talk at length about baptism and God’s grace. She was smart, capable and insightful. She told me about how much more she understood Scripture and God’s will today versus when she was a teenager, and this time she was getting baptized for the “right reason.” I tried convincing her she didn’t need baptism, for she was growing in the grace of God (2 Pet. 3:18). However, when push came to shove, I relented and I baptized her. It was her third baptism. I wondered, at the time and even today, how many more baptisms will she need before she will finally get it right, and that God will forgive her?

Thus, enough of us doubt we’re saved, and have convinced ourselves that God’s looking for any reason to condemn us. Where can we find security without running for a blue blanket, or a stuff plush doll? 

John 3:16-17 has God looking for every reason to save us, not to condemn us. Jesus’ cry is for “All to come to him who are heavy burdened and he will give you rest” (Mt. 11:28). John reassured his readers when he wrote, “I write this things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 Jn. 5:13); he didn’t write, “. . . you might have eternal life.” And if our weekly partaking of the Lord’s Supper says anything, it should answer the question, “how much does God love us;” this much, as Jesus stretches out his hands. 

I may not need my Snoopy doll today as a point of security, and you may not need a blue blanket either. I do find that the above Scriptures help in my security, and it doesn’t hurt to sing songs like Blessed Assurance either.

By the way, the original Snoopy doll I found in a box, covered with thirty years of age and love, was used by my mom and her sister as a pattern to clone an identical Snoopy. In fact, they made one for me and for each of my three children. I’m glad I found it. More importantly, I’m just glad Jesus found me. 

bonum dolar!
(e.g., Good Grief!)

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No Turning Back! In the Face of a Fast Forwarding Faith

Where we cast our eyes is generally where our bodies tend to follow. So Jesus tells his disciples that looking back makes as much sense as a farmer plowing a field, who instead of looking forward keeps turning around to see where he’s been (Lk. 9:62). A straight line will never be plowed if the farmer keeps looking behind him/her. So we keep our eyes looking forward.

When Lot fled Sodom and Gomorrah, the angels told him not to look back, instead run to the hills. But too much was going on behind them as a sulfur fire hailed down on the twin cities. Their past was calling to them louder than their future was. Lot’s wife couldn’t fight the temptation. She slowed her pace and turned her head so that her eyes and heart was now in sync. Immediately she was turned into a pillar of salt (Gen. 19:26).

When the Israelites crossed the Red Sea it was supposed to be their own burning of the bridges back to Egypt. And for a while it was. But wilderness wanderings was difficult. Hot in the sun with the heat escaping at sunset to significantly cooler temperatures, especially in the winter, conditions were far from ideal, even for nomads. With the wind blowing, sand of plenty and water’s scarcity, it’s not farfetched to believe that Egypt then was viewed better than the Promised Land there. For their short-sighted rebellion, God gave the next generation the Promised Land (Num. 12).

A magnetic force pulls us to keep looking back. An addict longing to be clean keeps going back into the pills, the porn, or the booze. A small child at camp painfully begs for her parents to come get her, even though they try to convince her to stay. A Christian seeking grace cannot get untangled from the legalistic doctrine ingrained in their minds. The abusive wounds of the past keep haunting us as we relive those moments in our minds, instead of allowing for healing to take place. We make a clean break from our past only for our past to keep enticing us, luring us, guilting us to come back to them, while God continues calling us to a better promise.

Because we’re so inclined to turn back and look, Paul reminds the Philippians to keep pressing forward. Our future is before us, not behind us (Phil. 3:12-14). So important is it to move forward that he tells them (i.e., us) twice to press on. Part of moving forward is to forget the past – not to ignore it, but never allowing it to control us. We accept a memory wipe. Neither the bad we’ve done or experienced nor the good we’ve embraced define us. Because we’ve failed doesn’t mean we quit, and when we’ve succeeded, it doesn’t mean we’ve arrived. We just keep pressing forward.

On the Columbia River Gorge, about thirty miles east of Portland, is Multnomah Falls. With a reach of 600 some feet, it’s the tallest waterfall in the continental United States (I’ve often imagined what Lewis & Clark thought when they first laid eyes on her as they rafted down the Columbia River). A path has been carved and paved from the bottom of the falls to the top of the falls. The two plus mile hike weaves back and forth and takes the hiker about forty-five minutes to complete the course. The view is beyond spectacular.

When Cile and I visited my family in 2002 we went to The Falls but never attempted the climb. Jonathan and Matthew would not have made it. Nine years later, we found ourselves in Portland with the goal of making the trip to the top. But even with Matthew being twelve years of age, the climb was still steep and hard. Scattered along the path were benches to rest and catch a view of God’s handiwork along the Gorge. We took full advantage of those benches. We were often tired and easily worn out, if not discouraged. But we pressed on and refused to turn back. We came not to quit half way up the path, but to reach the summit of The Falls. And once there, every single step was worth it.

So Jesus calls us to keep moving our faith forward. For “though the hills are steep and the valley is deep, and we may be weary with the outlook dreary, the up-look always points to victory.” We press on because what God has for us lays in the future not in the past. We press on because Jesus is leading us. We press on without a U-Turn as the song says, “No turning back. No turning back.”

Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e., only God is glorified!)

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Getting the Notes Right

No one was able to do more with less, than Schroeder. He sat down at his toy piano and provided masterpiece renditions of Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach, but mostly Beethoven because Ludwig van Beethoven was Schroeder’s hero. He kept a closet-full of Beethoven’s busts to display (he always wanted a spare because Lucy might break one in her own frustration). His house number was 1770, which was easy to remember since it was Beethoven’s birth year. He once enlisted a sponsorship for his baseball shirt from Beeth-Ovens. And every year he picketed his neighborhood carrying a sign to count down to Beethoven’s birthday. 

One day while he was playing, Charlie Brown noticed something about Schroeder’s toy piano; the black (i.e. ebony) keys were painted on the white plastic (i.e. ivory) keys. When he questioned how Schroeder could play such beautiful music with the painted keys, Schroeder’ response was simple, “Practice.” I guess if Charles Schulz is drawing pictures of Beethoven’s sheet music or Vince Guaraldi is providing the piano sound for the TV/movies, then you can play almost anything on a toy piano. 

My own musical journey was more akin to the plunking sound Schroeder did at the Christmas program when he played Jingle Bells, than when he played the now famous Linus and Lucy theme song. My guitar attempts were short-lived as I couldn’t get my left and right hands to come together in tandem (I could say the same about my attempts at the piano). I spent eight years trying to play a French Horn, which they say is one of the hardest instruments to master (small mouth piece and very long horn wrapped in a coil). In the right hands the French Horn sound is the most beautiful of the brass instruments, but it wasn’t in my hands.  Most of the time I was more concerned with hitting the right notes, than I was with making music. 

My eight years of band experience was overall positive. Both of my directors were meticulous instructors, particularly my middle-school/high school director. She demanded our best, and we respected her enough to give her our best. The results spoke for themselves. We got the notes right by winning sight reading competitions, propelling us to win the equivalent of the State Competition for stage bands my junior and senior years in high school. 

I still feel the residual effects of getting the notes right when I listen to music. My ears cringed when my children were learning to play their respective instruments. Sometimes American Idol tryouts are too painful to watch; I’m thankful that The Voice weeds out the singers/performers from the pretenders. And while I’m supposed be “lost in wonder, love and praise,” I easily get distracted when the hymns veer far off from the written score. 

Getting the notes right not only resonates with my musical background, but also with my theological background as well. I’m part of a historical Movement focused on getting doctrine right. Certainly, I admire and applaud such a history. Who wants to admit they belong to a group who perpetuates a lie? I don’t. We long for harmony with God, not dissonance. We pursue getting the doctrines right: resurrection, baptism, Lord’s Supper, worship, Incarnation, Church, et. al. But in our pursuit of getting these right, two problems have emerged. 

One, we’ve tended to settle for a select few doctrines (i.e. baptism, church structure, worship, etc.), while forgetting how much the Bible speaks about forgiveness, taming the tongue, social justice and equality, and how lives touched by Jesus means being transformed into looking like Jesus. Even Jesus preached that there were “more important matters of the law, like justice, mercy and faithfulness” (Mt. 23:23). He also reminded us that God “desired mercy, not sacrifice” (Hos. 6:6; Mt. 9:13). 

Secondly, in our pursuit of the right note of doctrine, we’ve often failed to humbly and compassionately pursue harmony with each other; we’re far too comfortable living in dissonance with those we disagree with. Dissonance may be of value in certain musical contexts, but harmony is the norm. Jesus’ prayer was for the church to be one (Jn. 17:21), not to just talk about unity, but to mirror the unity of the Triune God. Or, as Paul McCartney once prayed, “Ebony and Ivory lived to together in perfect harmony; side by side on my piano keyboard, O Lord, why don’t we?” 

So let’s get the notes right, or in this case, let’s get the doctrine right. But let’s expand our play beyond treble and bass cleft, or the white ivory and the black ebony keys, and embrace the “whole counsel of God” (Act. 20:27). Let’s be all encompassing, for only then will we play the beautiful music of Christ. More importantly, maybe then, God will use us in a way where people will ask, “How’d you get that sound out of that toy piano?” Besides, no one has been able to do more with less, than God.

bonum dolar!
(i.e., Good Grief!)

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Eats, Shoots, & Leaves: The Importance of a Comma Placement

In the old west, a stranger entered the local saloon. He wore a black, ten gallon hat and his fur was black and white; even his eyes were black like he was wearing a mask. A holster, holding his Colt 45, was strapped around his fat belly. Spurs “clinking” as he walked into the saloon. The music and talking came to an eerie and abrupt stop as the patrons’ eyes slowly followed the stranger to his table where he removed his hat and holster. 

A nervous waiter served the stranger. He showed him the menu to which the stranger pointed to the items he wanted to eat. The waiter cautiously and quietly thanked his guest and put the order in. A few minutes later he returned with a bamboo stick and fresh greens, to which the stranger slowly chewed each bite. 

When he finished his meal, he reached for his hat and holster. The waiter came and with a crack in his voice, thanked him for his patronage. The stranger pulled out his Colt 45 and shot the waiter. When the stranger reached the exit, the owner of the saloon shouted with a very country twang, “Whatcha do that fer?” The stranger looked at him and quietly said, “Look it up.” 

The saloon owner reached under the counter for his 1880 edition of the World Book Encyclopedia (it was only a one-volume encyclopedia back then). He found the letter, “P” and started looking for Pandas.  “Here it is,” he noted, and began to read aloud, “Ailuropoda Melanoleuca . . . Giant Pandas . . . endangered species . . . native to south central China . . ..” And with the light of understanding and a nodding motion of his head, he added, “Eats, shoots, and leaves” (cue the laugh track, now).

A friend of mine once sat in my office, sharing his concern. His buddy was engaged to marry a woman who was a member of a questionable, cult-like “Christian” organization. He wanted to know from me what I knew about their core belief system. I told him I knew very little. What I did know comes from two facts: One, this group has their own translation of the Bible. Secondly, they deny the incarnation, so that the Jesus who walked on the earth was not the God who created the earth. Thus, their own translation is a manipulated attempt to support what they already believe (it’s a clear example of “instead of Scripture shaping one’s theology, one personal and bias theology is shaping Scripture” which happens all the time, but on a less formal basis). John 1:1 is the best example, “. . . and the Word was with God and the Word was a god” (New World Translation). All other translations universally translate the same verse, “. . . and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” 

However, understanding the Greek is complicated. I looked to my library and retrieved Jack P. Lewis’ book, The English Bible: From KJV-NIV (Dr. Lewis taught at my alma mater, Harding School of Theology), and started reading on the NWT until I found another fascinating verse in Luke 23:43, which clearly exposes their bias. By paralleling the two passages, you can notice the difference:

“I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise” (NIV).
“I tell you the truth today, you shall be with me in paradise” (NWT).

The conflict is over the placement of the comma. Does it belong after “truth” or after “today.” If the NIV is right, then Jesus is assuring the criminal on the cross that his paradise experience will occur “today.” However, if the NWT is right, then Jesus is assuring the criminal that his words are true “today” (almost as if on another day his words might be false). Where is the comma supposed to be? By looking at other verses with the same structure (Mt. 5:26; Mk. 10:15; Jn. 1:51, et. al.) it soon becomes apparent that the comma belongs after “truth.” 

So the whole story and debate comes down to a comma. Nothing in the English language is as small and minute as a comma. Yet, if ignored or wrongly placed can have devastating results. Where are the commas in your life? Where are those little items in your life that, if you ignore because they are small and seemingly insignificant, they could cause great conflict? Who knows? Instead of one who “eats shoots, and leaves,” you might end up being someone who “eats, shoots, and leaves.”         

Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e., only God is glorified!)

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Follow Me, Boys!

The Beagle Scouts were a common thread Schulz wove into his daily strips. Snoopy was the Scoutmaster who led Woodstock, Conrad, Bill, and Oliver on numerous adventurous hikes. They camped out, roasted marshmallows, and learned about nature. While the group began as a “boys only” organization, they eventually let Harriet join the group because of her famous angel food cake with seven minute icing. 

When Schulz introduced the Beagle Scouts, he was not only offering a parody of the Boys Scouts, but he clearly had a competence tone in mind. In that first panel Lucy couldn’t believe Snoopy was involved with scouting. She asked, “What kind of scout are you,” then followed it up by a scathing commentary, adding, “You don’t know anything about scouting!”  Snoopy smiled and responded, “I’m a Tenderpaw.” (Boy Scouts get the obvious pun). 

I don’t believe Snoopy really knew a lot about scouting either. He did offer sound advice like, “The first rule of course is always follow your leader,” and “stay together because we’re a team.” However, his “troop” never quite understood scouting, like the time they built their campfire out of their own (wooden) tent pegs, or the time Snoopy corrected Oliver over the proper response to roll call when he said, “No Oliver. You do not say ‘When the Roll Is Call Up Yonder, I’ll Be There.’” 

I see a lot of myself in Snoopy’s leadership. When I joined the Boy Scouts leadership, I knew nothing about camping. I didn’t know how to set up a tent. I didn’t know how to tie a knot.  I didn’t know, and still cannot recite the Scout Law or Oath. A group of boys were placed under the care of my inadequate leadership. In many ways I learned as they learned, and I learned from them as much as they learned from me. While today, I do know how to set up a tent and stay warm in cold weather, I never did quite master the Scout Law and Oath, and I still hadn’t a clue about tying knots.

Fred MacMurray stared in the 1966 Disney movie, Follow Me, Boys! After spending time on the road with a band, McMurray decided to settle down in a small town. In order to win the favor of a local girl, he started a Boy Scout troop, and he knew about as much as scouting as I did; his inability to ties knots becomes a running gag in the movie. In the end, McMurray builds a successful Scout Troop, not because of what he knows, but because he was passionate about Scouting, and believed in the boys he was leading. More than what he taught the boys, he modeled daily living for the boys who needed a male presence and leadership in their lives. 

On numerous occasions the apostle Paul called for his churches to follow him, because he was following Jesus (1 Cor. 4:16; 11:1; Phil. 3:17; 4:9; 1 Thess. 1:6; 2 Thess. 3:7,9). The words can sound like an ego-centric person, or someone whose pride has distorted what it means to live a life of faith. Certainly, some of the so-called “Christian Leaders” we find today are so concerned with gaining their own fame and following that they forget they’re primary responsibility is to point those followers to Jesus. Paul’s statement to follow him is only in light of how well he himself is following Jesus, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1).

Concerning biblical leadership, two points of interest are worth highlighting. First, to be a good leader doesn’t mean you have all the answers, but it does mean you’re willing to find the answers. As one person said, “It’s not what you know that matters, but who you know, or how much you care.” Good leaders have the right people around them, who offer sound/healthy advice, wisdom, and keep the leader accountable to his/her own actions. Simply put, you don’t have to know how to tie a bow-line knot, but you can say, “We can learn this together.” 

This brings us to the second point of biblical leadership. You must model something about Jesus in your life for people to see. When Paul says to “follow me because I follow Jesus,” then there must be something concrete about Paul’s discipleship of Jesus for the church to see. Did they see his compassion, his forgiveness, his love, his joy? If 1 Corinthians 11:1 is a summary statement for the previous section in chapters 8-10, then his leadership example is about giving up his freedoms or rights for the good of others. (By the way, I like Peter’s generalized statement to elders. They have the authority to model the Christian faith [1 Pet. 5:3]. Leadership is less about power and control and more about showing what Jesus is supposed to look like in each other.) 

Snoopy may not have been the best Beagle Scout, but we’ll give him a pass because he’s Snoopy. However, no one can doubt that his motive was pure, and that he cared about his followers. Ultimately, isn’t the level of compassion and concern you have for those under your care the real mark of great leadership? 

bonum dolar!
(i.e., good grief!)