HOLY FIRE BLOG

"The work is extensive and spread out, and we are widely separated from each other along the wall. Wherever you hear the sound of the trumpet, join us there. Our God will fight for us!" (Nehemiah 4:19-20)

The year was somewhere around 450BCE - so how can anything then matter now? Well, listen into the conversation. In fact it sounds just like now: "We are widely separated from each other" in our cars on the way to work; in our homes getting ready to get in our autos, onto the bus, or Metro heading off across the expanse that is Greater Los Angeles and Southern California. Or we may just be locked into the busy-ness of the day.

My daughter drives miles everyday, her automobile being as much a tool of her trade as her laptop or Blackberry; my grandson heads off for school as Dad starts his day. This story is repeated a million times over across Southern California and elsewhere, too. "We are widely separated from each other," and often while locked-up into our busy-ness, also alone with our pain in spite of there being millions of people around us.

In such busy, isolated, separated times we need to know there is a trumpet; others of us need to carry such trumpets for sounding an alarm, telling others around us there is a problem, there is one with pain and we must rally together to pray. Not rally in terms of scrambling to get to each other in physical space for the distance of separation probably makes this impossible, or certainly impractical. But rather, "join us there" in real mutual concern. Because someone has sounded the trumpet and we have heard via a text message, an email, a phone call - and we pause as soon as it is practical and safe, in order to pray.

Nehemiah could not have imagined the vast distances separating people today who can yet be so close together. At no time in human history have there been more people on Planet Earth, yet at the same time at no time has there been greater connectedness. So we turn what could be a disaster of aloneness into an advantage of connectedness for you, me, and the kingdom of God. We sound the trumpet on this Blog, via this connection, so that you may join us there, right now when you get this post, at the point of need even if you are many miles away!

At the same time, as you pray, you may be aware of another need nearby or far away. So follow this lead. Don't you dare learn about the pain, the problem, the trouble bothering your neighbor without sounding the alarm! Be that one carrying the trumpet and blow that horn, man, woman, like Gabriel himself! Sound the alarm!

And so this morning we do just this, especially for Eric who has been out of work and has taken a stand against the doubts and the doubters and believes that he will have an answer this week. Let us now believe with him: "Our God will fight for us!"

"If two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven," Jesus said, "For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them" (Matthew 18:19). We come together now, as you read this post, in Jesus name; and we agree with Eric for his answer. For Eric along with with us God will do it!

And if for Eric, for you, too: Blow the trumpet! Let us hear from you…

Posted by paul at 08:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In seventh grade a couple of guys and I had the task of making sure sports equipment got out to the field and back again. I remember this for two reasons.

First, because I remember Mr. Wright; he was the seventh grade teacher in a school small enough that you had one teacher in one class all day – you didn’t change classes like in today’s Middle Schools. He also doubled as the “Coach,” and took real interest in all his kids.

We had one, and I loved that ball, but always had to take it back inside and leave it in the locked sports equipment cabinet.

So what’s a ball like that worth to a 12 year old kid, a ball that made you feel like Johnny Unitas? Well, I found one high on a shelf in a local store. “$12 bucks,” the storekeeper said, “That ball is worth $12 bucks.”

So I picked up windfall apples for the next month in a local orchard for 10 cents a bushel to get the $12 Rawlings football. Now, comparing footballs and apples, you realize how much a football is worth? Well, $12 equals exactly 120 bushels; plus tax which at a penny or two on the dollar meant another couple of bushels. Now, with an average of 100 apples to a bushel, we always piled high, so let’s say 110 apples to a bushel. That means I picked up 13,500 apples to get a $12 football!

Today, a professional Rawlings football can cost you a $100.

If you want a Rawlings pro-level baseball, you’ll pay $50 or more. But that same baseball hit as Barry Bonds 756^th home run brought one guy $752,000 and change.

You see, what you have in your hand is a matter of perspective.

So what is that in your hand? What is it worth?

It’s just a rod, God, Moses answered. Now, remember from the text, Moses had just watched a bush on fire that didn’t burn up: God, you just set a bush on fire that didn’t burn up – and you’re asking me about a stick?

Get the picture? Burning bush not consumed; a stick with desert dust all over it. Yet God is concerned about the stick, a thing that is just ordinary, everyday stuff – ?

It’s a rod, God.

But more than that, this ordinary rod was

I.                    The Rod of a Shepherd

a.       Note v. 1, 2: God’s question follows Moses protest, in essence, I can’t. Now, God is sending Moses to lead Israel out of Egypt – no small task. And Moses remembers what happened when he tried 40 years before – presumptuous failure. God was requiring Moses to step out of a familiar role into strange, unfamiliar territory, but more, he was forcing Moses to face up to an embarrassment that happened 40 years before in order that Moses would take hold of what he had been right about all along – he was called of God to deliver Israel and it was the Israelites who had rejected him who were wrong! Moses had just tried a little too much too soon.

b.      So God connects the coming unfamiliar to the present very familiar. Moses, what do you have? What you have is going to relate to what you will be doing just as it has to what you have been doing. Moses, all you need is that rod. Moses, I needed a shepherd, now you are one!

c.       ILLUS: The 23^rd Psalm speaks of “rod and staff;” some think of the rod and staff of biblical times as the same tool, the “crook.” But when David explains to Saul why he thinks he can go against Goliath, he tells of rescuing sheep from the “mouth” of a bear and lion. To do so, he tells Saul, “I struck it and killed it.” How did he strike it? As valiant as David was, he most likely did not hit the lion with a right cross! He had rod and staff, the rod being distinct from the “crook.” Either may be called a “staff,” but the staff with the crook was not the rod: the rod is a rod, a shorter stout stick with a knob on the end, as much a club as a staff and might be called a staff, but was a rod, intended to be a killing machine when required: the shepherd would literally throw the club like a missile to hit the predator, stun it, and then follow up with the kill. Moses had used that rod for 40 years in the desert, and like David, had probably killed more than one lion with it. But he was now about to make the biggest kill of all. With it, he would part the waters of the Red Sea, lead Israel through the sea, while leading Pharaoh’s army into the sea to their destruction!

This came about because this shepherd’s rod became

II.                 The Rod of a Servant

a.       V. 3 “Throw the rod on the earth…” God said; and it became a snake, real enough that Moses “ran from it.” But God instructs, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.” Note:

                                                               i.      This required absolute trust on Moses part. Moses was defenseless; the rod he used to club many a snake now was a snake! But God says, “Reach out your hand, take it by the tail…” When Moses obeyed, it became a rod again. The point is, this was not magic, but trust in God demonstrated by obedience.

                                                             ii.      To show this, that the rod was not a magician’s wand, God has Moses put his hand in his inside pocket, as it were – in his bosom, says the HERITAGE. The hand turns leprous; put in again, it was restored. The power was not in Moses hand holding the rod, but in doing what God said, in obedience to God.

                                                            iii.      You see, the rod had become the rod of a servant of God.

b.      ILLUS: The snake, a cobra specifically, was a symbol of Pharaoh’s power, Moses enemy. Later, God will have Moses place a bronze image of snake on a pole so that people bitten by poisonous snakes could look to it and live. The Bible pictures our enemy Satan as a serpent, a snake – we have been bitten, as it were, by sin which is Satan’s doing. So Jesus in John says that “just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the son of man must be lifted up that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” On the cross Jesus took that curse of sin on himself, and as we look to Jesus we are healed. The point is, by obeying God’s command to look to Jesus, like Moses we take the snake by the tail; not of just any snake, as if snake handlers, but of “that original snake,” says the HERITAGE, “being called the devil and Satan.” Rather than running from the snake, confessing what he is doing to us, at God’s command do what God says in any given situation…and the snake will become a rod in your hand!

c.       ILLUS: But it is the rod of a servant, not a magician; this is not about miracles at the push of a button, but as provision for doing the will of God. A friend, Sandy Baker was a missionary to Mexico, and worked with a Bible school located in that barren swath of high desert stretching from El Paso, TX southward. She tells of that school having poured fresh concrete as the floor and foundation for a new dormitory. Moisture levels in the concrete are critical, the ideal for structural concrete being 17%-24%; more or less than that and it won’t cure right to have the strength to support a structure. So they’ve poured this bottom floor and foundation and have no money for a redo. Suddenly, as can happen in high desert, a thunderstorm appeared on the horizon, marching right toward them. If you’ve seen it, you know it comes on like an army marching in rank: dry on one side, dry on the other, but a solid sheet of water in between veering neither to the right or the left. I’ve seen them coming at what appeared to be several miles away and in minutes you’re being soaked – they can fill dry gullies faster than you can get out of them. The storm was headed right for the freshly poured concrete and only minutes away. While the working crew starts looking for cover, the “crazy” missionary heading up the school starts running toward the approaching storm as fast as the storm is coming toward him; he gets between the storm and the newly poured concrete and in the name of Jesus rebukes the storm. No, it didn’t stop raining; but a wind immediately started blowing in from the west pushing the storm to the east just enough to miss the freshly poured concrete.

In just this way, the rod of a servant becomes

III.               The Rod of God

a.       V. 17, “But take this rod in your hand…”  The interesting thing about this verse is that leading up to it Moses has argued with God about everything but this rod. God has bent over backwards to reassure Moses on every point, even to the extent that he’s to deliver a message to Pharaoh, but Aaron will do the talking. But there is no argument about the rod; so

                                                               i.      You’ve heard of security blankets? God reinforces what Moses is comfortable with: take the rod with you!

                                                             ii.      V, 20: the rod becomes the link between what Moses knows and what God will have him do and so Moses calls it, “the rod of God.” It is as if it were the hand of God reaching down to hold his hand.

                                                            iii.      But what makes a thing the rod of God? Not inherent magical secret powers; but that it is a shepherd’s rod become a servant’s rod in the hand of a shepherd – this is what makes it the rod of God: not what it does, but what it is in Moses hand.

b.      ILLUS: A pot of soup and a loaf of bread became the rod of God in the hand of my mother. A certain family down the street hated Pentecostals, and the lady of the house went out of her way to let us know it. But the lady liked my Mom’s homemade soup and bread. You could smell my Mom’s homemade bread all over Albuquerque; and my Mom made sure this family got some whenever she baked. Then their father went to the hospital with leukemia. This lady comes to the Pentecostal soup-maker bread-baker to ask for prayer and hears about a straight-line to heaven, no need to go through an intermediary, Jesus is the only mediator you need. A loaf of bread became the rod of God and brought that family to Christ!

c.       ILLUS: So you’ve just come home from a Benny Hinn service; or you’ve heard about the latest Rinhold Bonke crusade in South Africa. You’re pumped; you feel the power; you’re ready to break five loaves and two fishes and feed 5000 or so. And God shows you a computer, cell phone, a fishing rod, a basketball, a dirt buggy, a kitchen stove. You’re like Moses who just watched a burning bush not burn up and God wants to talk about a rod, a stick, a piece of wood. What is that in your hand?  God will make you into a Moses by taking what is in your hand, what you know, what you are comfortable with and turning it into a rod of God.

CONCLUSION: In his book, Leadership on the Other Side, Pastor Bill Easum describes a church in Honolulu, Hawaii, that started with four people and grew to be about 5000 and still counting when the book was published. There was no burning bush attracting people to the supernatural; no parting of the red sea, and in fact very little program. There was only the rod of God in each one’s hand – each of the originators had something they knew, were comfortable with, enjoyed and did very well. One guy for example was a computer wiz. Another played a guitar; and so on. They would meet together for weekly prayer, worship and Bible study led by one of them who spearheaded it all as a pastor. As they prayed God revealed a plan: they covenanted together, agreeing that each of them would find four other people who would be helped by learning what they knew – they shared what God had placed in their hand. The computer guy found four others who needed what he knew or just enjoyed tech talk; the guitar guy found four other budding musicians; and so on. They didn’t hit anyone over the head with a Bible; they shared life and what they knew – the rod in their hand – on a somewhat regular basis. And if you are sharing life it is natural to share Jesus; and to invite a person to church on Sunday morning. The point is, the four became 16; the 16 became 64; the 64, 256, and so on. There were bumps, not every four became 16, but many did, and a thriving church is the result…now what is that in your hand?

Posted by paul at 02:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Of many childhood memories, the most vivid include memories of family mealtimes. In part, this is because of shear size: “family” included Mom, Dad, two older sisters, a dozen and a half foster kids, and me – twenty-three, to be exact, at its largest. We shrunk after that as new theories in Foster Care required sending some of the guys off to a boy’s ranch, rudely breaking up our resident baseball and football teams.

But even then, as for the mealtimes, intimate dinners they weren’t – they were far more like church potlucks where you have to fill your plate in haste before everything good is gone.

Yet more memorable than the hustle and bustle of the elbows you had to dodge as arms and hands reached from platters, to plates, to mouths, was mother’s homemade bread. It didn’t matter much to me whether the meal was chicken, pot roast, spaghetti or soup – or whether I got my fair share of any of that – as long as I got plenty of Momma’s bread.

To me, her bread was synonymous with wellbeing – give me thick slices of that bread with butter and a bowl of beans and I was in heaven!

Heavenly bread, indeed it was. And for this reason I took that bread very seriously. Bread, you see, was not only a central feature of mealtime, but a central feature of church time; to me bread was heaven, well, seven days a week…

I remember more than one time the preacher quoting scripture and declaring authoritatively, “Blessed are those eating bread in the kingdom of God.” I just knew that this was no ordinary bread; in the kingdom, it must be the king’s bread, just as any bread served in Mom’s kitchen was her bread. But if they had bread in heaven, I wanted to be there!

I tell you for sure, you would have been blessed to eat that bread in my Mom’s kitchen; how much more blessed, then, to eat bread in the king’s kitchen! So I wanted to know, who will eat this bread?

Here we were, a hodgepodge of 23 folk, ranging in age from about nine up, from probably most of the racial identities found in Central New Mexico, plus the Fiji Islands – yep, we welcomed into the group a set of sisters, two beautiful young ladies, one dark ebony, the other pale ivory; strange, huh? We eventually met their parents when these sisters, unlike most of the kids, went back to Mom and Dad; Mom was light skinned with blond hair and Fijian features; Dad as handsome as Mom was pretty but as black as a starless, moonless, midnight. No one cared; black was beautiful without anyone saying so or even thinking about it. And white – well, I was the whitest of the bunch and for me it just meant red sunburn the first few days of summer when we plunged into the Rio Grande on Memorial Day to exit on Labor Day for back to school and “leave the mud behind,” Mom insisted. I longed for a deep, dark tan, but lived through the summer with red-blotched white, glad to have the mud to cover it up, while wishing for some of the color God splashed on everyone around me. Red and yellow black and white, with brown in between; along with Mom’s bread, mealtimes were a virtual radiant display of living color. We lived ebony and ivory with south of the border harmonizing as Indian love call sang tenor.

So I just knew that like eating Momma’s bread anyone of any color or circumstance could eat heaven’s bread. It just didn’t matter the color of your skin, the accent of your native tongue, or background at all, God loved you even when you couldn’t be sure your flesh and blood Mom and Dad did. I never doubted my parent’s love, but many of these kids did. So with her bread Mom spread a table set with love for all, and if with her bread she did that, well, along with heaven’s bread God does, too. I was convinced.

So I asked. About heaven’s bread, I mean; not the preacher, I didn’t ask him, but I asked Mom. After all, she was the one who insisted I memorized scripture before I could read, and the 23^rd Psalm became a staple of my scripture repertoire, and didn’t it say there, “You set a table before me…my cup overflows?” While David didn’t say so, surely there was bread on that table. So, how about it? Where does heaven’s bread come from?

Now I knew that Momma’s bread came from the oven, after hours of mixing enriched flour with water and yeast, and kneading it, kneading it, and kneading it and allowing it to rise to knead it all over again. But then as the emptied flour sacks went into dresses for my sisters, the bread sure as shootin’ went in to the oven. So does God have an oven?

Jesus is the bread, Momma said, confirmed by Dad, who was the real Bible teacher. Living bread; and yes, he went through the fire for us, they agreed because the Bible said so. He died, descended into hell, fought the devil good, tied him up tight then let him loose just a little bit. That’s why we have kids without Mom’s and Dad’s, it was explained. The devil hates everybody and is out to do as much harm as possible. Of course, people are responsible, too. Dad, the disciplinarian made sure we knew with a spanking or two, when deserved. It wouldn’t do to say, “The devil made me do it.” Such practical applications kept the subject from getting too deep. The chatter went back to the bread. So God serves Jesus…

“For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world…I am the bread of life,” Jesus said, said Mom. This led to deep discussions, or as deep as it can get with pre-teen kids gathered in a long, hard-wood floored living room after supper in the fall after the mud of the Rio Grande has been set aside till the next summer and we surrendered to cooler evenings indoors. So we can eat the bread of heaven now, I thought, said so, and others agreed. So we prayed around the room, sang a hymn, and thanked Jesus for the table he had spread right there in Momma’s living room with plenty of heaven’s bread for everyone to eat. Red, yellow, black, and white with brown there, too, received Jesus as the bread served by Mom but from a table in the kingdom of God. Heavenly bread for sure: prepared by God. But it was served by Mom, and received by kids who tasted and enjoyed bread in the kingdom of God because they had first tasted Momma’s.

Posted by paul at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Growing up without a TV in the countryside of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Valley meant spending many a warm summer evening outside running, playing, exploring, and swimming in the warm muddy waters of the Rio Grande.

It also meant dodging the bats and teasing my sisters about getting bats caught in their hairdos. But a bat caught in a hairdo is more fable than fact. Truth is a bat will eat half its weight in bugs in a single night of darting about doing its best to avoid hairdos!

Factually, they fly, eat bugs, and hang upside down – oh yes, and they poop.

But hanging upside down is what bats do best; and they do so because they can’t stand right side up….

Let me say that again: they hang upside down because they can’t stand up. Bat leg tendons are not connected to muscle. With the single exception of a certain type, bats can’t stand, run, or jump to “take off,” as it were. To fly they have to fall, and to fall they spend their lives hanging upside down.

Ever know people like this? They “hang out” upside down because they can’t stand right side up? Hoping to fly, they keep falling into the poop below?

Like a bat, the only flying some folk manage is in the dark consuming excess; this inevitably results in making a mess in the daylight – what is it someone said, excess in excess out? No matter how successful things may appear on the outside, these folk fly in the dark, make a mess in the day, and leave poop behind.

Now, like getting into hairdos, the rumor is that a bat can’t see. You’ve heard, “Blind as a bat?” In fact, a bat has good eyesight, but nothing to see. Flying at night, eyes open, all is dark, so it finds bugs with built in radar. During the day, hanging upside down, eyes open, it stares downward at poop. Darkness and poop: if that’s all you see, why see at all? So it is not that a bat can’t see; it’s that that a bat has nothing that is worth seeing!

Oh my, oh my! Who are we talking about! Surely not you or me…

Yet, the Bible talks about how “the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.” Hanging out, upside down, like bats all they see is darkness and poop and assume that’s all there is to see….

Holy hairnet, Batman! Watch out for that barrette – it’s not a bug! You’ll get all tangled up…

Radar, Robin, radar! Remember the radar?

In fact, we’re all guilty of flying blind in the dark with nothing to see but the poop. God’s grace alone makes a difference. Like he granted radar to bats through whatever mechanism he used (we’ll leave evolution to another post), he grants new sight to people who believe; he grants the joy of seeing beyond the poop and learning how to live right side up.

A common misconception about the Christian faith is that it offers a “home free card.” Once you have it, you go your way as God goes his. Meet you in heaven. As I said, this is a misconception. So while no metaphor is perfect, let’s try another.

Whatever God grants to bats, by his sovereign grace, he grants new birth to believers in Jesus. Further, this being “born again” stuff is like a pre-paid lifetime subscription to a broadband, hi-speed Wi-Fi Internet connection that is always on. God connects with your inner being and from there with a network the Bible calls the “fellowship of the Holy Spirit.” You see, far from a “home free card,” you have been instantly gathered into God and Jesus by the Holy Spirit, and through the Holy Spirit into the Body of Jesus, meaning every other believer who is connected to God by the Holy Spirit. The Bible calls this being “baptized by one Spirit into one body” and being “given the one Spirit to drink.” Now, you don’t make this connection, turn it on, or turn it off. You receive it by faith created by the Word proclaimed and planted in you. The Holy Spirit does this, releasing the supernatural power of God’s love into the core of your being, and from there back to God and to every other believer. But like being at a computer with a TV on in the background, you can turn away from the comp to pay attention to the television. You don’t break a connection in doing this, but fail to make the most of the comp connection. In other words, in spite of this miraculous infusion of power, our choices still determine to what degree you, me, and kingdom of God benefit from our connection. So “we urge you,” Paul the Apostle writes, ”not to receive God’s grace in vain.” And “Live by the Spirit…Keep in step with the Spirit…” And finally, “Pray in the Spirit.”

Holy hairnet away, Batman! Away with worry about the barrettes, the poop, and the bat cave, too. I’m hanging out upside down no longer! I am though falling in the dark hoping not to hit the poop! I can stand, walk, run, and still fly, too. What a beautiful world there is to see! Fly by night? Not on a blind bat’s bet! Ah, just a metaphor guys. I know you can see; but how about a tour in the daylight…?

Posted by paul at 03:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We remember the 1929 Rose Bowl for a Berkeley Bear’s linebacker named Roy Riegels. Riegels ran a Georgia Tech fumble 60 yards to the one yard line – but the wrong one. Running the wrong way, he set up a 2 point safety that gave the game to Georgia.

Football junkies remember him as “Wrong Way Riegels.” But more people mistakenly refer to him as “Wrong Way Corrigan.” Why can't they get a guy's name right?

Does it matter? What’s in a name, anyway?

Well, you do have the case of "Wrong Way Beulah..."

But before we get to that, notice that it's all about perception. Riegels, Corrigan, Beulah - perception is in a name.

Riegels morphed into Wrong Way Corrigan when in 1972 Richard Nixon's campaign manager Clark MacGregor tried to muddy Democrat George McGovern’s name, declaring, ''Every time [McGovern] picks up the ball, he brings memories of Wrong Way Corrigan, the fellow who scored a touchdown at the wrong end of the field. One wonders why they don't send someone in off the bench to tackle him before it is too late.''

Republicans had a good laugh, even as MacGregor was selling them the Brooklyn Bridge disguised as the Rose Bowl wrapped up in the Cotton Bowl...

You see, rather than muddying McGovern, MacGregor muddied the facts. He confused Roy Riegels of Rose Bowl fame with Douglas Corrigan of Brooklyn to Ireland fame. Corrigan flew from Brooklyn to Ireland claiming he was heading for California. Compases were rotten in 1938!

But MacGregor also transposed the 1929 Rose Bowl with the 1954 Cotton Bowl. In the ’54 Cotton Bowl an Alabama fullback came off the bench to tackle Rice's halfback who was fully engaged in what would have been a 95-yard run - excpet for Alabama's 12th man who jumped into the game uninvited! Rice got the touchdown by default and went on to win the game.

To this day the separate events of Riegels’ wrong way run, Douglas Corrigan’s wrong way flight, and a sidelined fullback’s wrong way tackle have merged in the public mind due in large to a politician’s wrong way speech. Events unrelated in reality have become the mythical tale of a single happening only vaguely related to truth. And even though Roy Riegels went on to play good enough football to eventually coach for Berkeley and be inducted into the Rose Bowl Hall of fame he is remembered erroneously as “Wrong Way Corrigan.”

So we ask, what’s in a name? Well, sometimes not a whole lot of what is real. Perceptions can be way off the mark. Then again, they can be in the ball park but still caught up in a "who's on first" riddle.

Beulah, an unusual name that appears but one place in the Bible, is like this. In 1981 Squire Parsons wrote and recorded, “Sweet Beulah Land,” which hit number one, I think, on Southern Gospel Music Charts. This might be unremarkable except that Parson's Beulah came along 100 years after the fact, a kind of a “been there, done that” thing. As far back as 1911 three numbers titled “Beulah Land” had been widely circulated and were in use for years after (still are). More remarkable, however, is how a name mentioned but once in the Bible, Beulah, could interest four composers to write about it, millions to sing about it, and enough other people to buy the 1981 recording to make it number one on gospel music charts.

Well, it's all in perception. I'm willing to bet the average person doesn’t have a clue about the Biblical roots of “Beulah.” But those who wrote the "Beulah" versions and the people who sing and listen have perceptions – and this brings up the most remarkable thing: the people who enjoy the 1981 version, have a perception of Beulah that is nearly the polar opposite of the older versions!

Parson's 1981 version identifies Beulah with heaven; while the 1876, 1884, and 1911 versions place Beulah in the here and now. In short, Parson's makes Beulah a future hope; but the older versions make it a present experience.

Wow! Is there maybe a "wrong way Beulah" at work here? Which way to Beulah, guys?

Does it matter? Only as much as any perception matters - like which way to the goal line; and what's in a name anyway: does it matter who or what you believe?

Well, the question to ask is where does God put Beulah? What is his perception? He invented the name anyway. We’ll offer an answer in a future post (soon). Of course, you may have an answer...?

Posted by paul at 10:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)