House Church by Lorraine Triggs

In its heyday, my childhood church in suburban Detroit was a megachurch before megachurches existed. The building was a wonderful mishmash of church architectural styles from the 1940s, 60s and 70s when various additions were made. It made a great home for the children of the church, where we children freely roamed the educational wing, obediently heading to our classrooms when the bell rang for Sunday school or evening Training Union.

Until the evening someone dared Billy to stick his head through the bars of the stair’s railing. Billy was an average size kid with an average size head, and as good Baptist children, we loudly voiced our opinions about the dare, but before a consensus could be reached, Billy took the dare and stuck his head through the railing.

We were in awe, until Billy realized he couldn’t pull his head back out. The bell for Training Union went off, no one moved and then chaos ensued. Teachers ran out of the classrooms and tried to pull Billy out. Someone ran down the stairs to the church kitchen for a tub of lard. Billy twisted and turned his head and started to cry. Then off in the distance, a siren wailed. We began to breathe easier. Help was on the way, and despite that nasty-sounding electric saw cutting through the railing, Billy’s head remained attached to his body.

I’m happy to report that we all made it safely to adulthood and today communicate mainly through the church’s alumni Facebook group, since my childhood church no longer exists. It wasn’t abandoned but demolished, unlike the roughly 1,100 former churches currently for sale in the U.S. according to an article in The New York Times. It was the headline that caught my eye: “For Sale: Hundreds of Abandoned Churches. Great Prices. Need Work.” I am still deciding what bothers me more—the demolition of my once-vibrant home church, the abandoned churches put up for sale all over the country, or the buyers snapping them up to convert them into one-of-a kind private homes.

In early church history, houses became churches—not the other way around. In 1 Corinthians 16:19, the church in Aquila and Prisca’s house sent hearty greetings to the church in Corinth. Paul deepens the definition of a house when he instructs the believers in Galatia to “do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” (Galatians 6:10) Paul’s personal greetings at the end of his letter to the Romans use the language of family to describe the members of this new household of faith—Andronicus and Junia are kinsmen (as well as fellow prisoners), beloved Stachys and Persis, and Rufus’ mother—who has been a mother to Paul.

The church is at its best when it is a home for the lost, the found, the sick, the ones who are sick but don’t admit it. It’s a home where the door is left open for a prodigal’s return, or gently closed on the clamor and chaos for the world weary to find rest. It’s a place where you and I are “no longer strangers and aliens, but . . . fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.” (Ephesians 2:19)

In the end, the church is home to pilgrims who are looking forward to a feast set on a table that overflows with the bounty of grace and mercy in a home that lasts forever.

Reading the Love by Wil Triggs

When I was a freshman at Bible college, Randy, a friend of mine, confessed to me that he was having a hard time in his American literature class. The problem: Moby Dick. The professor expected him to read the whole thing.
 
Randy felt that he could fake his way through the quizzes and probably get by, but the teacher had him sign a piece of paper confirming that he had read the whole book.
 
With his name on the line, he knew he had to forge ahead and read every page at some level. I still remember his words, “I have never read a book from beginning to end.” I thought I had misunderstood him, so I questioned him. What do you mean? You mean this school year? Not your whole life. How could that possibly be true?
 
Randy explained that in his school, he was never required to read entire books—just excerpts in anthologies. He didn’t know what to do.
 
I told him to keep reading. The book might grow on him as the class discussed it. Then again, it might not. I mean, the prof wasn’t asking him to love the book. He only had to read it through and give it a chance. I felt for Randy. I mean, for the first book ever . . . why couldn’t she have assigned something shorter like Winesburg, Ohio or The Old Man and the Sea or A Tree Grows in Brooklyn or, given the way this musing is going, Fahrenheit 451.
 
I thought of Randy’s struggle when I came across a recent article in The Atlantic that reported a growing number of students, even in the Ivy League schools, don’t read books from beginning to end. They just can’t focus enough to read an entire book. Class curriculums are changing to a collection of shorter essays. One literature class reportedly no longer requires the reading of Crime and Punishment. But if they can’t read that one, how will they ever get to The Brothers Karamazov?
 
The thing that seemed especially strange about Randy’s question was that he was a Bible major. A book. A really long book. I did not ask at the time if he was including the Bible in his statement. A collection of books. Old and New Testaments. Had he read that book all the way through from beginning to end?
 
Maybe in Randy’s mind the Bible didn’t count because it was the Bible. Of course, the Bible is the ultimate book. What Moby Dick is to American literature, the Bible is to the universe and eternity and life itself. Lowest, highest and deepest. Everest. Death Valley. Lake Baikal. The Word of God. Actually more than a book.
 
After David, after Solomon, after the kingdom split and most of the people did evil, along came Josiah (2 Chronicles 34).  He was doing right, cleaning up the land, tearing down idols, purging the land, rebuilding, renewing, bringing his kingdom up to date and generally doing good.
 
Then during all the cleaning, Hilkiah found the Book of the Law. And Josiah, for the first time ever, heard and listened. He read his Moby Dick. OK, well, maybe he had it read to him, but he really heard it.
 
And when he heard it, he tore his clothes and grieved for his sin and the sins of his people. He didn’t keep the word to himself, just for his own repentance and renewal.
 
And the king went up to the house of the LORD, with all the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the priests and the Levites, all the people both great and small. And he read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant that had been found in the house of the LORD. And the king stood in his place and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes, with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant that were written in this book. (2 Chronicles 34:30–31)
 
We cannot truly hear the Word without conviction of sin. We have no choice when we truly hear than to tear our clothes and fall prostrate to the floor.
 
If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
    O Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness,
    that you may be feared.
(Psalm 130: 3–4)
 
But where is this forgiveness? Where is it?
 
“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire—
    but my ears you have opened—
    burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require."
Then I said, “Here I am, I have come—
    it is written about me in the scroll.
I desire to do your will, my God;
    your law is within my heart.” (Psalm 40:6–8).
 
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)
 
And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” (Luke 1:34)
 
“Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
    and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
Then will the lame leap like a deer,
    and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness
    and streams in the desert.” (Isaiah 35:5–6).
 
Do we ever really stop reading the Bible? What about not just reading, but actually living the Bible? Repent. Tear down the idols. Read the whole book. If Randy could make it through Moby Dick, and he did, what about us, the people of God, steeping in it, savoring it, smelling, tasting, hearing every word of every delicious page.
 
Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there. And many followed him, and he healed them all and ordered them not to make him known. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah:

“Behold, my servant whom I have chosen,
    my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased.
I will put my Spirit upon him,
    and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.
He will not quarrel or cry aloud,
    nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets;
a bruised reed he will not break,
    and a smoldering wick he will not quench,
until he brings justice to victory;
   and in his name the Gentiles will hope.”
(Matthew 12:15-21)
 
Through the pages, Jesus comes to us like the whale we cannot escape. Who would want to escape? Keep reading.
 
Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." (Luke 4:20–21)
 
“He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
    to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’
(Luke 4:16-19)
 
Keep reading. Let us strap ourselves to Christ, Ahab-like, to the great figure of the deep, riding, diving, drowning, living and dying in the wonder of the love that answers every question asked by anyone. And beyond that—falling down prostrate not before the swelling judgment of our overarching sin from which we cannot find landfall; but rather, falling down before the Word who spoke and gave and pursued love for us, who redeemed the irredeemable, the one who plants us new like Psalm 1 meets A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
 
Behold, I am doing a new thing;
    now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
    and rivers in the desert. (Isaiah 43:19)

Words, Words, Words by Lorraine Triggs

”Words, words, words, I’m so sick of words,” sings Eliza Doolittle in “My Fair Lady.” Eliza would have hated the conference Wil and I participated in this week. 

We have been in Puebla, Mexico, at LittWorld 2024, where 200 Christian creatives from 40 countries have gathered to celebrate words and creativity. In some ways, this conference is shop talk for writers, editors, designers and publishers, but the conference theme gets to the heart of this triennial gathering: publishing for lasting impact.

There has been a lot of quoting Isaiah 52:7, and for good reason, especially since the word “publishing” which is music to all our ears, is repeated twice in the verse—those who publish peace and those who publish salvation. This week I also heard other words, such as “humility “ and “servant” and “encourage” that give an upward turn to what my global family members communicate here, and then there where they live in Mexico City, Peru, Spain, the UK, Kenya, Nigeria, Ukraine, South Korea. . . .The list goes on.

Words of peace and salvation and humility also give an upward turn to ordinary conversations, and when paired with other words such as gentleness, kindness, patience, we no longer need to get the last word in to win the argument or to prove a point. These Spirit-driven words are ones for which we should never tire. And we should strive to find them growing in our hearts, rolling off our tongues and blessing others.

I don’t blame Eliza Doolittle for being sick of words that are hurtful or selfish or full of empty promises. So, for the Eliza’s of the world and for ourselves, let our words speak healing and reconciliation into our relationships. Let our words encourage and build each other up, and may every conversation turn upward to the Word who dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.

Surprised by Life and Death by Wil Triggs

We are coming up on the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. With that in mind, here are a few excerpts from recent prayer sheets that I prepare weekly. The quotes and stories are from real people who live each day with faith that stands apart from the people around them.
 
10/23/2024 Nigeria — A week ago, Pastor Eli Abdullahi Tinau attended a memorial service honoring 29 Christians who were killed by Islamic Fulani extremists in 2015.
 
The victims, who had sought refuge in a classroom at LGEA Primary School in Nkiendoro, Miango district of Bassa County, were brutally murdered after militants bypassed the military’s protection. Two survivors were critically injured, and one later died from gunshot wounds.
 
Pastor Tinau, 35, has come close, many times, to being a victim of Fulani extremist attacks himself. It’s simply part of his work as a missionary from Katsina state. Tinau, who also pastors the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) in Nkiendoro, which is about 60 miles from Jos, doesn’t let the threat of violence or even death deter him from sharing the gospel with the Fulani. So far, Tinau has led two Fulani to Christ.
 
10/25/2024 Somalia — As Mohammad Abdul led a Christian worship gathering on the evening of Oct. 5 in his home in Somalia’s Lower Juba Region, four Muslim relatives waited outside for the event to end. 
 
As the worship ended, his relatives confronted Abdul, asking him why he was worshiping God differently. 
 
“My prayer is a secret between me and my Lord Isa [Jesus],” Abdul told his relatives. “Why should I pray in public? That’s just a way to please men. In my time of worship, I should please only God, who is in the heavenly places. Isa, who saved me, knows my heart, and I am happy in my heart, so leave me alone.”
 
His relatives then assaulted Abdul, hitting him with a blunt object and slapping him in the face.
 
I have followed stories of persecution for years, and now weekly, and there’s something about these stories that never fails to encourage me and disturb me, all at the same time.
 
I don’t know why this comes as a surprise, but for me it still does after all these years. We Christians find inspiration when other Christians die for their faith. We pray and do what we can to stand with them, but the impact of a person giving their all in the face of opposition does something nothing else can.
 
More than any temporal advancement, becoming the head of a company, being elected to public office, even gaining recognition and praise in a field of music or another artistry, those who die for Jesus’ sake have launched people into missionary service and deeper walks of faith. Many of my older friends recall the five young men who died at the hands of the Waorani in Ecuador and how their sacrifice changed the way people thought about missionary service. There is a church there today.
 
So, for this special time of prayer, I’ve collected a few quotations from people who have known the fellowship of suffering through the ages.
 
If we are the sheep of His pasture, remember that sheep are headed for the altar.
—Jim Elliot


When you're able to love, you're able to sacrifice yourself for the truth. Since I learned that lesson, my hands do not clench into fists.
—Sabina Wurmbrand
 
Lord, open the king of England's eyes!
—Wiilliam Tyndale
 
You can kill us, but you cannot harm us.
--Justin Martyr
 
My desires are crucified, the warmth of my body is gone. A stream flows whispering inside me: Deep within me it says, Come to the Father. Near to the sword, I am near to God. In the company of wild beasts, I am in company with God. Only let all that happens be in the name of Jesus Christ, so that we may suffer with him. I can endure all things if he enables me. I am God’s wheat. May I be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts until I become the fine white bread that belongs to Christ.
—Ignatius of Antioch
 
Our life is seed, sown in the earth to rise again in the world to come, where we will be renewed by Christ in immortal life. I did not frame this body, nor will I destroy it. God, you gave me life, you will also restore it.
—Jonas of Beth-Lasa
 
Perhaps you can add your own expression of faith, expressing your love and commitment to Jesus. Ours is not theirs, but in prayer in some small way, theirs can be ours. 

Father, Maker of all things, every soul;
Son, shepherd who sings, bruised triumph, names on scroll,
Spirit, new life brings with the burning coal.
Let all who have breath praise the surprise
And rejoice in awe as we see the dead rise.
Ours the suffering, the grave, the skies,
because by faith  “. . . some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life.” (Hebrews11:35)

Bibles Up! by Lorraine Triggs

I’d like to think that on Sunday in some church somewhere in America, children are having a Sword Drill in their Sunday school classes. As a child, I ruled at Sword Drills, or Bible Drills as my church called them.

“Bibles up!” We would hold our King James Bibles by their spines over our heads—any lower would be cheating.

“_________” Teacher would give a Scripture reference, which was also our cue to look for anyone thumbing the pages of their Bible to gain advantage. This naturally gave way to accusations of cheating, hoping to disqualify any competitor.

“Go!” Hurry to find the verse in our Bibles and start reading it aloud.

I continued my rule of the Bible drill as a curriculum editor at David C. Cook Publishing. It was the early days of desktop publishing, and my fellow editors and I would play our version of Bible drills. One of us at our desk with an unopen Bible; one at the computer set to hit find and go; one to call out a random Scripture reference. Human vs. computer and we savvy editors would always win.

In theory Sword Drills are designed to help children learn how to locate books of the Bible and be comfortable looking up verses, with the goal of having Scripture verses ready for spiritual battle. In practice, Bible drills did help me learn my way around the Bible, but in a hop, skip and a jump way, and, however unintentionally, turned Scripture into a competitive sport—one that I am still tempted to play today.

If my current social feeds reveal anything, it’s how easy it is to post Bible verses for one’s personal agenda and advancement. I do manage mostly to avoid these kinds of posts, but I still hop, skip and jump through Scripture and use it for my advantage.

Here I am reading along in Philippians, happily keeping up with Bible study, when I read verses 14 and 15 of chapter 2: “Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.”

Rather than slow down and face my grumbling and disputing, my complaining and arguing, I skip right over that to the much safer crooked and twisted generation. It’s easier to complain about the dark days we live in than to confess to grumbling about an unfair situation or not getting my own way.

I compare the sins of the godless—sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, those who practice homosexuality, thieves, the greedy—to the nice sins I commit, using God’s Word to inflate myself as I take a giant leap over Paul’s reminder in 2 Corinthians 6:11 that “such were some of you," apart from Christ's rescue of us from good and bad sins.

Scripture is useful, not for personal gain or promotion, but “useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God maybe thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17, NIV)

So, Bibles up!

(Philippians 2:15-16)

Go

". . . shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life.”

Walking with Pongo and Wendell by Wil Triggs

Wendell Hawley’s book of prayers, ones he first prayed at College Church during his time of pastoral ministry here, are in the process of being printed into a new edition. I think it’s going to be beautiful, something many of us will want for our bookshelves and our hearts.
 
It’s not ready yet, but the publisher I’ve been working with on behalf of Wendell has sent the author’s proof, and I’ve been reading his prayers again. We used to use the prayers in our musings, but Wendell at some point told us to stop. He wanted to encourage Lorraine and me to write more of our own musings. He wanted to see what we would say week after week. So, we have respected his wishes. Until now.
 
Wendell, it’s just a few lines. This small portion of the first prayer in the section for October jumped out at me:
 
“Sovereign Lord, your greatness is unsearchable.
                Your goodness is infinite.
                Your compassion unfailing.
                Your mercies ever new.”
 
I walk my dog in the morning and consider the unsearchable greatness of the one Sovereign Lord. As my little min pin dodges through the grass to the tree trunks in the parkway and what bushes he can reach, I find myself thinking of greatness, goodness, compassion, mercies.
 
Unsearchable greatness, yes, but not unknowable. There are ways that we can know God. And we are invited to search the Scriptures and, in that sense, we do know him through a kind of searching. Never completely to know, but always a little bit more, day by day, to know him whom we cannot see, the One whose greatness we cannot search.
 
My dog cannot be outside unleashed. It’s his breed, impossible to catch if he gets loose without his leash. I want to be as tethered to God and his infinite greatness as my dog must be to his leash.
 
As I watch my dog sniffing, the walk turns into a run to whatever happens to be in front of us, to whatever smells good. The dog is intent on finding this goodness in the moment. And though I may be oblivious, he is attuned to all kinds of good things I can’t smell or hear.
 
What to make of infinite goodness? We might strive for a few acts of true goodness. Maybe try to do something good every day. Yes, let us all try for something good on this day. But our goodness, or maybe I’ll just speak for myself and say, my goodness is definitely finite. Short-lived goodness. That’s my kind. It is at its best when it knows that it really isn’t mine at all, but an echo or a shadow of the only good and wise One.
 
My dog has a different idea of goodness from Lorraine or me.
 
When we had two dogs and we were out of the house, they managed to break open a down-filled pillow. It was a good time, no, a great time for them, emptying out the pillow onto the bedroom floor—a foot of snow feathers blanketing a winter storm throughout our bedroom and floating down, down, down the stairs so that when we got home we saw the hint of it in the little down feather suspended in the air like the first snowflakes of the season.
 
Dog goodness and human goodness might occasionally align, but this was not one of those moments. My goodness so often falls under the category of down feathers let loose from their pillow-home. We come home and find the mess of goodness and clean it up as quickly as possible. By the time we’re done, the dogs have forgotten the feathers and moved on to a master-given chew toy. God’s goodness is not my goodness. His goodness follows us all the days of our lives, and cleanses us, not the other way around.
 
If goodness is in short supply, it seems like compassion, not to mention “unfailing compassion,” is even more of a rarity.
 
And the mercy of Jesus, wait, Wendell is saying mercies. Plural. These are ever new, not because they need to be but because every day of my whack-a-mole world requires a new mercy. Or two. Make that three or more.

My little dog breed was created to catch mice on farms in Germany, but here in Winfield, we don’t want him bringing us mice. We don’t want mice dead or alive dangling down the side of his mouth. Thankfully he hasn’t been doing that.
 
But here we are on our walk in the almost sun-up shadows of early morning.
 
I think of the dog of a former work colleague of Lorraine’s, who once proudly presented her with the pet parakeet bird in its mouth. Fortunately (for the dog), they loved the dog more than the bird.
 
Like a stubborn bloodhound kind of dog, I keep digging up folly. Every day I find some new folly particular to the day. I smell it, digging and picking it up with my mouth. I look up at my master. Look what I dug up now. Mercifully, he takes the dirt-covered moldy thing I’m so proud of finding. I release my jaws to his pull and there, it’s gone by God’s new and perfect mercy. We walk together.

Grateful for the leash.
 
Wendell goes on: “You are altogether lovely—superior in all things.”
 
This is not the apex of the prayer. It’s just there in the middle, not a complete thought even in itself and yet just these few lines stay with me. Like this pre-dawn ordinary walk on this October early day, I think and don’t think. My dear little dog is faithful in ways that I’m not. He is always happy for me to come home. He is always ready for a walk, always happy to just be in the same room with me. So, there are some ways that I can learn from him, to always be ready and happy to see and love my Lord.
 
As the sun comes up and the morning grey gives way to colors, I say along with Wendell, “Lord, you truly are altogether lovely.”

The Queen of Sheba by Lorraine Triggs

My mother was no Old Testament scholar though she did have an unconventional handle on Old Testament characters, thanks in part to her upbringing in an Orthodox Jewish home. These characters were often used as standards for our behavior, sometimes as good examples, sometimes bad.

The most frequent standard bearer was the queen of Sheba, as in “And who do you think you are, the queen of Sheba?” This was not a rhetorical question and typically posed when my mother thought my sisters and I were putting on airs—acting as if we were better or more deserving than others. " No," we hemmed and hawed, "we’re not the Queen of Sheba, but…"

In 1 Kings 10 we meet the queen of Sheba. She had heard all about Solomon and came to test him with hard questions, and she "arrived in Jerusalem with a large group of attendants and a great caravan of camels loaded with spices, large quantities of gold, and precious jewels.” (10:2, NLT)

The queen wasn’t a bad queen. She told Solomon that his wisdom and prosperity surpassed what she had heard. She saw how happy his men and servants were, and she blessed Solomon’s God, acknowledging that the Lord had set him on the throne.

It’s not until I read 1 Kings 10:13 that I begin to understand what was behind my mother’s question: “King Solomon gave the queen of Sheba whatever she asked for besides all the customary gifts he had so generously given. Then she and all her attendants returned to their own land.” (NLT) Even if Mother were as wealthy as Solomon, there was no way she would have given my sibs and me whatever we asked for—hence, the comparison to the queen of Sheba—and why were we asking anyhow? My childhood was far from austere; however, my mother did not want her daughters to grow up what we label today, as entitled.

It’s a word loaded with connotations, but in the end its definition is simple: a belief that we deserve or are entitled to certain privileges—even when it comes to salvation. Say what? We don’t believe in salvation by works, but there are times when we think salvation is more by entitlement than by grace. Like the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable in Luke 18, we’re impressed with ourselves and what we bring to salvation—status, wealth, achievement. Isn’t Christendom lucky to have us? Instead, let’s be more like the tax collector in the parable, overwhelmed with our sin, overwhelmed with God’s mercy and grace.  

So, who do we think we are—the queen of Sheba who came to King Solomon with her retinue of gold, camels and spices?

No, we are the not the queen of Sheba. We come, instead, with nothing in our hands, no money for food or water, to the greater eternal king and receive the bread of life, living water and words that are more precious than gold—fragrant with gospel spices of death, burial and resurrection.

Dark Glasses by Wil Triggs

Lorraine and I like to watch a television series whose sponsor is a river cruise company. Before each show starts, there’s a commercial for the cruise line. There are shots of sunny days with the cruise ship floating down the European river.
 
My only actual contact with a river cruise was when we were at a summer camp ministry in Russia, back when that kind of thing was allowed. The campsite was situated by a wide, lovely river, and whenever we went down to the river, campers and leaders alike would wave at people aboard the cruise ships passing by and the passengers would wave back at us. This idyllic scene would have made a great commercial for the cruise company.
 
The camp leaders, however, wanted us to see something different, and for some reason, were eager to take us to the evangelical church in town.
 
Camp felt a long way from town, but it really wasn’t that far. It was just a short ride to the center where the church was, so they took us there for a short visit in between camps when one batch of campers had gone and other one would soon arrive.
 
We went in and the church had a display of its former pastors who had been arrested and sent to the Gulag. It was like a little museum. Each pastor had preached the gospel and been sent off to prison. Some died there. Others returned to some form of normal life. The church cherished them enough to remember them in this public way. It was the first thing you saw when you walked through the front doors.
 
This church and their persecuted pastors came to mind this week, as our Bible study looked at Paul writing to the church in Philippi while he was in prison. The mutual prayer support, the words of assurance, the call to faithful living and unity in Christ shine across the Roman world and through the ages to the church and those pastors in the Gulag, and to us.
 
I’ve read of different descriptions of Paul in prison, different ways the ancient world treated their criminals. Prisoners were chained, as Paul describes himself “in chains.” Sometimes attached at the foot, sometimes at the neck. The rooms that were dark, with little or no light and little or no air circulation. Unsanitary conditions would have been an understatement, with rats and vermin. Little or no food. Guards exacting bribes for food or better treatment.
 
Some house arrest situations seem not as horrific. A prisoner of lesser crimes awaiting trial might be held in house arrest, but always with a guard, allowed visitors and food. It wasn’t freedom exactly. For our modern life sensibilities, the upper-story prison would be plenty bad enough. Still, in was no picnic.

Whatever Paul faced, the chains, darkness, lack of privacy, toilet indignities and the mocking and beating from other prisoners or guards themselves--even just one or two of these would easily give our weak constitutions more than we can handle.
 
I think probably Paul experienced many prison variations over the course of his ministry. His witness to the imperial guard and the household of Caesar happened through chains.
 
This week, I received photos of another sort. A friend and missionary sent me a photo of pastors at his church in Ukraine. It was an ordination that took place at an outdoor service of thanks. Each man is kneeling and the pastors behind them are praying as they commit their lives and future work to God and his ministry at church. You can see the fervor and faith as they kneel and close their eyes looking forward to futures of ministry and gospel outreach. Something’s coming for each of them. They have a future.

What will become of these people called to ministry in time of war? What of their families and their congregations? How many will com to faith under the ministries of these men? They may also be called into military service--what then? What if their country falls to their invader? These are open questions as the nation of Ukraine calls up more men to fight in their war. Yet there they are kneeling in prayer and faith.
 
It’s not this life but the next that motivates. It’s not an earthly father but the heavenly one we honor and serve. It’s not bad news but good that is our message. May we each carry it and speak it in whatever this day brings. I look at these four men an saw, "Yes." God's path is best and they are all in. May we be too. 
 
When we put on the glasses of faith, the lenses are dark. We are not yet seeing face to face, but with faith we know Jesus and follow him wherever the path may lead. Let us lean on his everlasting arms no matter what.

We celebrate and rejoice in Paul, even Paul in chains, we celebrate the pastors memorialized in the Russian church. We look forward with eager hearts to see how God will bless others through the pastors in Ukraine and us and and others all over the world, stepping forward, kneeling in service, willing to give themselves, body and soul, to Jesus and his gospel, our only hope and only reason to live at all.
 
For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have. Philippians 1:29-30
 
What have I to dread, what have I to fear,
Leaning on the everlasting arms?
I have blessed peace with my Lord so near,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.
 
Leaning, leaning,
Safe and secure from all alarms;
Leaning, leaning,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.