“Not yet!” (28 of 56)
Series: The Church in ACTSion
Wyman Richardson
Acts 12:6-25
Read Acts 12:6-25
This is college football season, which means that many of us are living vicariously through the lives of young men who do not even know we exist. But we get caught up in it because it is fun or because we have an allegiance to this or that school as alumni, or because it is a matter of state pride. Truth be told, college football probably serves the same purpose for many men that soap operas serve for women: an external emotional and psychological stimuli in which we immerse ourselves in a larger drama that, in truth, could take us or leave us. But we watch and we cheer and we cry and we rage because, for whatever psychological reasons, these things matter to us.
Technology has helped the experience a bit because now, through the miracle of the internet or of DVR, we have the ability to watch the live broadcast tied in emotional knots then, afterward, to watch the recorded and replayed broadcast in a much more calm manner. Why is this? Because in the first instance we do not know what is going to happen. In the second, for good or for ill, we do.
Watching replays of games is especially fun if you win a close game or come from behind and win. In the replay experience you do not develop ulcers or nervous disorders no matter how far you are behind at the beginning of the fourth quarter because you know you are going to win! When watching a replay of a come-from-behind victory, for instance, you are at peace, telling yourself, ''I know we'll win in the end.''
I would like to suggest that the Church throughout the ages has been in a similar boat. No matter how dire things look, no matter how bleak our circumstances appear, and no matter how victorious the forces of darkness appear, we know we win in the end. The first viewing of the story can be emotionally and psychologically grueling, to be sure. There are times when we are tempted to think we might ...
Series: The Church in ACTSion
Wyman Richardson
Acts 12:6-25
Read Acts 12:6-25
This is college football season, which means that many of us are living vicariously through the lives of young men who do not even know we exist. But we get caught up in it because it is fun or because we have an allegiance to this or that school as alumni, or because it is a matter of state pride. Truth be told, college football probably serves the same purpose for many men that soap operas serve for women: an external emotional and psychological stimuli in which we immerse ourselves in a larger drama that, in truth, could take us or leave us. But we watch and we cheer and we cry and we rage because, for whatever psychological reasons, these things matter to us.
Technology has helped the experience a bit because now, through the miracle of the internet or of DVR, we have the ability to watch the live broadcast tied in emotional knots then, afterward, to watch the recorded and replayed broadcast in a much more calm manner. Why is this? Because in the first instance we do not know what is going to happen. In the second, for good or for ill, we do.
Watching replays of games is especially fun if you win a close game or come from behind and win. In the replay experience you do not develop ulcers or nervous disorders no matter how far you are behind at the beginning of the fourth quarter because you know you are going to win! When watching a replay of a come-from-behind victory, for instance, you are at peace, telling yourself, ''I know we'll win in the end.''
I would like to suggest that the Church throughout the ages has been in a similar boat. No matter how dire things look, no matter how bleak our circumstances appear, and no matter how victorious the forces of darkness appear, we know we win in the end. The first viewing of the story can be emotionally and psychologically grueling, to be sure. There are times when we are tempted to think we might ...
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