Another Home Run

June 28th, 2009

Plus Impending Mike Visit

I guess I say this every week, but church was fantastic today.

For the last four weeks, the subject was Philippians 4:8, which says we should try to think about things that are Pure, Praiseworthy, Lovely, Admirable, Noble, True, Excellent, and Right (my mnemonic again: PPLANTER). I’ve been keeping it in mind, but it wasn’t all that easy to apply.Try it. Think about something good for a minute. A couple of minutes later, you may be thinking about something horrendous.

Today, we got a clearer idea how to put it to work. Pastor Wilkerson listed three things that oppose the Philippians 4:8 attitude: contrariness, covetousness, and cynicism.

I’m sure glad no one has ever seen those things on THIS blog.

Shut up.

I guess I don’t have to explain contrariness. It means you have to be a pain in the butt all the time, instead of going with the flow. Here’s a clue that you are contrary. People call you “a pill.”

Obviously, you shouldn’t go along with people when you have a good reason to object, but that’s not what he was talking about. Some people have to be an obstacle all the time, just to look smart or feel important. I have heard wild rumors that sometimes people who post blog comments act this way. I have heard–don’t quote me on this–that if you Google some commenter’s names, you will find an endless number of argumentative and smug yet worthless and fundamentally wrong comments on other people’s blogs.

That’s probably just an Internet legend. No one would really do that. I certainly couldn’t name five such people off the top of my head. No, I could not do that. Don’t even ask.

Covetousness means you’re never happy with what you have. But you’re pretty sure you’d be happy with what other people have. I suppose it makes sense to say it contradicts the spirit of Philippians 4:8, because you can’t be thinking positively about the things God has put in your life, if you’re sure they stink compared to the things he gave your neighbor.

Cynicism–I am so glad I’ve never been guilty of this one–means you are suspicious of other people and have a negative attitude.

The notes we were given say, “He is a champion of innuendos, double meanings, and put-downs.” I may know someone that description fits. But it also says a cynic turns people against a person who tries to “think best.” That’s not me.

I know I’ve gone overboard a lot. On the other hand, I don’t consider myself a true cynic. A true cynic is a kind of bigot. You never get a fair shot from someone like that. I’ve been critical of people I thought were con artists and bloviators, but I don’t question the existence of good people. I don’t automatically assume people are lying when they claim good motives (unless they’re emailing me from Nigeria). But I could do better.

The message I took away from this is that I should quit being negative just for the joy of it. And I should work harder to see the good in people and things. I was working on that already, although it may be far from obvious.

On the way home, I heard some guy on the radio talking about our duty to submit to government. I thought that was interesting. I see two main goals in Christianity. First, you want to get eternal life, and that’s easy, because it’s a matter of asking and believing. Second, you want to live in the kingdom of God here on earth. Not so easy. You have to behave and pray and worship and study, etcetera. It’s like being an Orthodox Jew, only with better food.

This guy pointed out that you can’t be lawless and live in the kingdom of God. You have to submit to government. Here’s a depressing extrapolation that occurred to me: we should probably pay tax on Internet sales.

I realize the states themselves are responsible for the Internet tax problem. They choose not to provide a convenient method of paying, and enforcement is nonexistent, and in actuality, they are complicit in the whole business. Legislators routinely shout down efforts to reform the system, because they know everyone will hate it. You could make a very good argument that we are not obligated to care more about this than the states are. It’s like illegal immigration. The law says “do this,” and our lawmakers say “but we won’t help, and if you don’t do it, we won’t do anything.”

Still, the better choice is to look up the silly forms and pay. At least on big items. Arrgh. I would rather have God’s power flowing in my life than save 6%. I want my prayers answered. I don’t want to bring shame on the church. I want growth. I guess I can cough up 6% in order to keep from screwing that up.

My attitude about taxes is as follows. I have never hated paying taxes. What I have hated is saving receipts and filling out forms. I complain about high taxes all the time, because they wreak havoc on the economy and punish productivity and make for creeping totalitarianism. But I don’t get upset when I have to pay. Maybe I should, but I’m always so happy to know what I owe, I hardly care what the number is. I just want to get the check written and kiss the IRS goodbye for another year.

Next week the church is having a July 4 barbecue thing after church lets out. “Coincidentally,” Mike may be in town. I let him know. We started talking about how we needed to take some food. Mike came up with an argument proving it was our Christian duty to humiliate everyone else with our ribs, in order to keep them from having unrealistically high opinions of themselves. I guess there may be some flaws in his theory, but I think ribs would be a good idea. Not sure how many racks I can get in the Hoginator. I talked to one of the pastors today, and he confirmed that they were soliciting food. I might make four or five batches of brownies, since they can be made several days in advance. Cheesecake would be too decadent, and besides, people would get in fights over it.

I’d like to take some food, because I haven’t gotten involved with the church, beyond showing up. I feel like I keep taking without giving anything. Of course, I provide a little financial support, but there is more to supporting a church than writing an occasional check.

Is it okay to smoke ribs over a pan of beer and then take them to church? We may find out.

I hope Mike makes it down here. My diet is going well, so I think I can survive a visit.

11 Responses to “Another Home Run”

  1. chuckR Says:

    Does Florida not have a line for use tax declarations to pay up for the internet taxes you’ve avoided? Not that anyone I know keeps a running tally.

    The big problem with taxes is all the regulations, rules and findings. It should be simpler. I’ll bet on any given day half the population is breaking some law and that most pertain to tax arcana nobody can keep straight.

  2. Andrea Harris Says:

    I would say that cooking with beer isn’t exactly like getting sloshed on a couple of six packs. Unless you’re making rum cake or something where the alcohol isn’t burned away by cooking.

  3. Ed Bonderenka Says:

    I just went to a Fair Tax Rally a couple nights ago.
    Seems like a good idea. We have, in MI, a sales tax (6%) and an income tax (4.3%?) then a bunch of hidden taxes thrown on businesses that get added to the final cost of the product.
    I gather a Fair Tax is a sales tax on consumption (excluding food).
    Does Florida have a Use Tax? In MI we declare (yeah) our use tax on our income tax form. Florida doesn’t have an income tax?

  4. Gary Says:

    I heard some guy on the radio
    .
    John MacArthur? His currently airing series is “The Christian and Government”. MacArthur is one of my favorite radio preachers. A lot of his series can be downloaded from the archive at http://www.gty.org

  5. Bradford M. Kleemann Says:

    No, you’re supposed to HUMBLE people with your ribs, not humiliate them! It would be even better to bless them with your culinary skills. That would be more in line with Phil 4:8.

  6. km Says:

    I only hate paying taxes to the extent that my state, and federal, governments are so insanely wasteful, corrupt and misdirected in spending the money.

    For every $1 the legislatures get today, they commit to spending $1.50 (or more) every year until the Messiah comes. And that $1.50 is wasted entirely, siphoned off to cronies or spent counter-productively.

    I feel about a large portion of my taxes about the same as I feel about being robbed to support the thief’s heroin habit.

  7. baldilocks Says:

    Scan every receipt, log it in an excel file, shred receipts afterward, keep files on a separate easily removable drive.

  8. Jim Says:

    Back in the 80s, I did an extensive search of the entire Bible for each and every word and passage having to do with wine, strong drink, drunkeness and every other imaginable variation on the theme.

    I used the Strong’s Concordance, as well as W.E. Vine’s Dictionary of New Testament Words.

    Finding each applicable verse, I then laboriously hand-wrote not only the verse itself, but the entirety of the context, even if it was the entire chapter.

    Then, I thoroughy exhausted all of the numercially linked chain references from Strong’s Greek & Hebrew cross reference. I know that’s not the most in-depth scholarly tool for research, but it’s what I had. Believe me though when I say that I absolutely ensured that I had chased every relational word-chain down until all had been addressed.

    I then re-wrote each Greek or Hebrew’s full definition from the Strongs and Vine’s (if available), in full, and in the numeric order from low to high, and listed each and every verse where that word was used.

    The outcome is that without exception (that I could find) that every mention of Grog in the Good Book refers not to grape juice, but to honest-to-goodness alchohol.

    Taking that into account, note that Jesus’ first miracle, the turning of water into wine at the wedding. Allow me to paraphrase.

    The Master of the Feast didn’t know that Jesus had turned the water into wine, so, having taken a pull of the New Wine, turned to the Groom and said :

    “Dude, you ROCK! Most guys serve the best stuff first, and then when everyone’s too snockered to know the difference, serve the Ripple and Thunderbird! But you? You’ve saved the Best for Last! Party on!”

    Clearly, that wasn’t Welch’s Concord Grape.

    Of course, we’re amonished to “be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be instead filled with the Holy Spirit”.

    I think Paul mentioned to Timothy that it’s OK to eat meat that had been offered up to idols, because nothing was unclean to the Christian, but to only refrain of so doing in the presence of those offended by the thought.

    But, Paul went on to say in the next breath…..”but he that eateth not meat is weak in the faith.”

    I’d say the same to those misguided traditionalists who are offended by a mere beer, or meat cooked over the same or marinated in wine.

    Weak in the faith.

    I’m not advocating being a stumbling block to them, but neither am I in agreement to conforming to their misinformation. Do the research, and present them the facts.

    And then, present them the ribs.

    Jim
    Sunk New Dawn
    Galveston, TX

  9. Ed Bonderenka Says:

    Man I love this place. Where else can you go for discussions on milling, reloading, Hebrew and Christian Biblical scholarship, A/C, taxes, ribs, Django Rheinhardt, bobcats…? Sometimes all in the same post.

  10. Juan Paxety Says:

    The trouble with the sales tax is that most states want to treat it as a use tax. For instance, if I buy something from a place in New York, Florida wants me to figure out how to pay the tax here.

    The only system that makes any sense is for the seller to collect the tax at the rate in the seller’s home district. There’s no way a seller could keep up with how much tax to charge in every tax district in the country – and buyers obviously won’t worry with finding and filling out the forms to file in their own state.

  11. Darren Meer Says:

    As someone who has cooked for many church events, I can say with absolute certainty that ribs, cooked with or without beer, will be a big hit! Makes me wish I was close enough to head over to your church to sample the Hoginator’s work.