One of our deacons told me a humorous story of when he worked at the grain elevator. It seems that they hired a young girl to do some secretarial work. The girl didn’t really do a good job and after a bit of time she left, but her poor work followed her. In the next few months, any wrong invoice or misfiled paperwork was blamed on her. The only problem was even after she had been gone a year mistakes from 6 months ago were still blamed on her. Even when it couldn’t have been her mistake, she was still too easy to blame. I think a lot of church problems get “solved” the same way. Instead of looking for how we can work to improve, we have some time tested excuse that is just too easy to use. Excuses and blame never solve anything. Next time we are faced with challenges, let’s not seek to lay blame, but find solutions instead.
In Acts 20, there is the tragicomic event surrounding a young man by the name of Eutychus. He did what a lot of folks before and after him did, he fell asleep during a sermon. Unfortunately, he was setting in in the third story window at the time. So instead of nodding off and hitting the pew in front of him, he fell to his death. The good news was the apostle Paul was delivering the sermon and had the ability to bring him back. I don’t know, however, if we can judge Eutychus too harshly. The sermon had gone on till midnight. Paul wouldn’t finish it up till daybreak. That’s a long lesson. I know some folks that might want to jump out of a window if I had a lesson that long, yet these Christians wanted to be there to hear Paul. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pushing for all night sermons but I think we might need to adopt these folks' dedication. They knew that Paul was only in town for a limited time only and they were determined to ...
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