How are those New Year resolutions coming along? One man characterized his resolutions as "going in one year and out another!" So you had plans of being a better bible student in 2006? Maybe you were finally going to share Christ with your mechanic, co-worker or one of your family members? How are you doing? Maybe you are succeeding in your commitments—praise God if you are!

It dawns upon me as I reflect upon my own resolutions (which by the way reveal both victories and failures), how grateful I am that God planned his work and then he worked his plan: "And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times (plural) will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ" (Ephesians 1:9-11). In his epistle to the Galatians the Apostle Paul wrote, "When the time (singular) had fully come, God sent forth his son…" (4:4). God intervened in the history of man (times) to fulfill bringing Christ (time) that he might be faithful to his promises to Abraham.

Reflecting on God and his plans, several things come to mind:

—Bill Adcox

A One Way Street With Jesus

Walking the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem was an unforgettable event in my life. Intellect assured me that much of the city and the terrain must have changed since the time of Christ. Rome, plus several centuries of other conquerors and inhabitants, had left their heavy marks upon Jerusalem. Despite the mental awareness that much had changed, my heart kept reminding me that Christ walked in this land and Calvary had occurred just outside the city walls. Scenes visualized before only in my thoughts, now, for the first time, seemed to have something more concrete. Even if my picture is of another pathway or if the actual soil where Jesus trod was buried deep beneath centuries of rubble, I tucked away memories, snap shots if you will, that will last a lifetime.

As Scott Gage, Rolland and Shirley Ann McLean and I mingled through the throng of people on the streets of Jerusalem, many were going the opposite direction. Thoughts about the man known as Simon of Cyrene come to mind. Simon walked this path going the opposite direction. To my knowledge, he knew nothing of the particular cruelty unfolding that day. The Cyrenian foreigner was merely coming from the country and, for lack of better expression, he walked right into the middle of one of Jerusalem’s worst traffic jams. Had he even heard of this Jesus before? That matters very little, I suppose. Whatever Simon was seeking in Jerusalem, he found more than he might have ever expected. The burden of someone else’s cross, but much more. The Gospel of Mark (15:21) identifies Simon by his sons, Rufus and Alexander, who likely were known among the religious circles where Mark’s letter would be circulated. Simon got caught going the wrong direction. Who would have ever thought that in an instant the cross-bearing Jesus of Nazareth would change the traffic flow of this Jerusalem pathway into a one way street for Simon of Cyrene. What kind of man is this? Scripture seems to allude to the fact that life changed that day for Simon’s family. Many who were touched by Jesus were compelled to fathom the depth of the same question, "What kind of man is this?"

What of you, my friend? You may not have given much thought about Jesus lately or maybe his touch upon your life has been heavier than you cared to admit? Does it feel like Jesus is going one way and your life another? You don’t have to find the Via Dolorosa. Jesus no longer carries a cross there, but Calvary may be closer than you ever imagined—even as close as your faithfulness to the local church. Jesus promised, "I will build my church" what better place to know and serve him. Take the time this Sunday to gather with Christ and his people. It just might be that you, like Simon of Cyrene, will find life flows a different direction when you take the time to answer those most important questions about Christ and your life.

Associate Editor Travis Allen and his writers help us travel the road that others walked and how they came to answer the question, "What Kind Of Man Is This?"

—Bill Adcox

Each generation and era of time, for better or worse, writes their own history. Certainly the annals of time will speak of our generation as the age of technology. As a young man one of my church elders used to say that in our lifetime we would see more change than all the generations before us. He is certainly right when it comes to technology and our consumer goods.

Studies have shown that no consumer good reached the American home faster than the modern television; computers have become a close second. In 1890, one percent of the American homes had a telephone. It took almost 67 years for 75% of homes in the U.S. to have their own telephone. In 1908, one percent of American’s owned automobiles and it would be another 52 years before 75% of households had the privilege of paying the registration fees for their own car. Vacuum cleaners took 48 years and refrigerators took 23 years to blanket the market. The radio took 14 years and the VCR only 12. But the TV virtually unknown in 1948 blazed across America in only 7 year! (Bowling Alone; Robert D. Putnam, pg 217).

I’ve watched with interest as television has made its grand entrance into the average homes of India in more recent history. In 1990 while staying in one of the Christian Relief Cottages in Hyderabad, India, things came to a stand-still on Saturday afternoon. TV programming aired for 2 hours (if the electricity cooperated). Each succeeding trip, the television seems to have moved further beyond the cities, creeping into the villages. It was just a few years back while driving in the remote area of Palakol that I spotted the bright black and white screen even before we reached the village. The villagers sat in the darkness watching what appeared to be the sole, village TV that had been perched in someone's doorway. Now even the poor seem to have a TV antenna sticking through their thatched roofs. India, like America, is finding that television viewing has steadily become a more habitual, less intentional, part of their lives.

In Robert Putnam’s book, he states, "More television watching means less of virtually every form of civic participation and social involvement." Casualties to our addiction to the television, computer and video games include: church attendance, social visiting, reading the bible and organization participation to name just a few. Putnam stated that only activities positively linked in their studies of the avid TV watcher were sleeping, resting, eating, housework, radio listening and hobbies.

Now don’t misunderstand me, even Putnam’s study realized there was a difference in the viewers watching the evening news versus catching the Jerry Springer Show. Television, like most tools, depends upon how it is used. Maybe one of the best gifts we could give our families, our churches and even ourselves, is locating the off-button on many of our electronic, entertainment gadgets. Learning to be selective in our TV watching, especially taking note that we not let matters of higher, spiritual priority become a casuality of our electronic gadgets.

—Bill Adcox

Serving The Lord In Multicolor

Little Jacob was a bouncing-ball of energy; his imagination never seemed to stop. From his car seat he dreamed of being captured by pirates and then fished for whales as Mom placed cans of tuna in their grocery basket. Jacob was now old enough for kindergarten; he couldn’t wait for the first day. His teacher, Mrs. Sowwer, had only one approach in her class--- everything had to be done her way. "Children, let’s draw a flower," but the children were quickly stopped. "No, do it my way." Her flower always had green stems and red petals. Each child quickly surrendered the potential plethora of colored stems and flowers, only to draw their own green stem, red petal flowers. It wasn’t just flowers; it was everything the children were asked to do.

Jacob moved to a different city the following year. He was nervous and excited his first day at his new school. It didn’t take long for him to meet his teacher, Mrs. Childing. The first assignment for the class was to draw and color a flower. All the children but Jacob quickly began to sketch. "Jacob, why aren’t you drawing your flower?" "Mrs. Childing, I’m waiting for you to tell me what to draw." "Why, Jacob," remarked Mrs. Childing, "if I told you what kind of flower to draw, all the flowers would look exactly alike. How could I tell the difference?" Jacob was confused. Such imagination and creativity had been bankrupted over the past year. Jacob sat there for a little while and then he drew the only thing he could imagine: a green stemmed flower with red petals.

Creativity may be one of the greatest gifts God has given to the church. The promise of the new covenant was that the Spirit would cause the old men to dream dreams (Acts 2:16). By inspiration Paul painted a picture of Christ’s church, not limited in its approach, but filled with activity and ability: "There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men" (1 Corinthians 12:4-6).

The "green stemmed and red petal" approach of modern religion measures in varied units: one measures by adherence to some man-made rules, while another on nothing but size of the crowd. The human "green stemmed and red petal" approach is not limited: both conservative and liberal can be equally guilty. The only requirement of this mentality is to set an imposing standard that limits man from fully following the one "who is able to do immeasureably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work with us. To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen" (Ephesians 3:20-21). It is Christ who sets us free to serve; he does so inside the church where he receives the glory. His rules set us free to use the gifts and talents he’s given his body, the church, to accomplish his will. The apostle John wrote, "This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world, even our faith" (1 John 5:3-4).

What an exciting thought! Christ's transformation does not breed conformity, but unity as each part supplies what God has placed within them. Bound together in one body, we —work, serve, obey, love—in a plethora of colors!

—Bill Adcox

A recent rendition of the bible, The 100-Minute Bible, is being published to accommodate our current reading habits (or lack thereof). For America’s truncated attention span and rampant biblical illiteracy, the publisher of this book, Len Budd, readily admits this dumbing down of the Bible is because people "just don’t have time to read it."

Our manner of life, business and religion seems to move at such a quick pace that we demand everything quick and short, including, sadly, our bible reading time. Maybe with a growing propensity to get our knowledge in sound bites and quick scans, it should not surprise us that our basic longings, namely, "Am I significant?" and "What is my purpose?" seem to be a more difficult find for our age.

What is the real problem? The problem is that with so little effort to really know things fully (including Christ) and our self absorbed approach to life (me before anything else), like the dog chasing his tail, we find our lives going in circles, but getting nowhere fast spiritually. The resulting phenomenon is that religion is on a rise in our country, but real, spiritual satisfaction seems to be moving toward a famine.

What can we do? Our relationship with Christ (faith) is one thing we can do something about. Jesus recognized and often condemned "little faith" (Matthews 6:30, 8:26, 14:31). It would be unfair of God to condemn an insufficient faith if we lacked the ability to do something about it. The solution seems rather simple and obvious as Paul writes, "Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message and the message is heard through the word of Christ" (Romans 10:17).

I think of the man who decided to plant a garden and at the end of his effort someone commented on the beauty of the garden and what a wonderful job the gardener and God had done. The gardener responded, "You should have seen it when God had it all to himself!" The gardener understood the necessity of self discipline if the garden was to become a reality. In an age of reading headlines and listening to sound bites, we may need to develop a different approach to scripture reading. Those who have read and devoted themselves to the King James Version of the Bible often don't realize how difficult it is for young, modern readers to read the old Elizabethan language that dates back to 1611. Despite the arguments that the Bible is too intimidating for today’s reader, we must devote ourselves to listening to God. Scripture has to be deeply understood; spiritual seed must be watered with meditation and thought. Actual holiness must be encouraged through self discipline so that real, spiritual nourishment and growth occurs. Somewhere beyond the "sound bite" approach to spirituality is a relationship with Christ that gives significance and real purpose to our lives. But just in case you still need a sound bite—here’s one to help sum up this CrossTies:      End Bible Famine—Eat A Bible.

—Bill Adcox

One more time this octogenarian gets to put together an issue of Gospel Tidings while Brother Adcox is busy in India. This time I want to share with you some thoughts about that wonderful but somewhat mysterious book we call "Revelation." For years I mostly accepted the theories of some noted preachers of the past (one of whom once had me thinking the world would end in a certain year – 1943, I think it was – for sure). As I came to realize that books and ideas on Revelation were beyond counting, my rather slight attention to it seemed to focus on the letters to the seven churches, a few other oft-quoted passages, and the final two or three chapters, thus avoiding most of the cacophony of competing theories.

Apparently I was not alone. Back in the 1990s, when a brother asked me how long it had been since Gospel Tidings had published articles dealing specifically with Revelation, I did some research and concluded that it had been a long time. In fact, the last (and maybe only) series of articles on Revelation had appeared about 40 years earlier.

When our congregation received an advertisement offering video lessons on Ezekiel, Daniel and Revelation at a special price, I was, let’s say, able to control my enthusiasm. But others were more eager to learn, so we bought the set and on 70 Wednesday nights viewed lessons by Jim McGuiggan on the three books, and the study proved to be a mountain-top experience for me. I saw that this last book lives up to its opening claim to be "the revelation of Jesus Christ," which makes it an important writing indeed. A real and dedicated Bible scholar, Brother McGuiggan spoke with earnestness and kindness, reviewing and repeating often enough for the likes of me to grasp the thrust of these great prophecies. You may remember that some of us attempted to present the gist of his teaching on Ezekiel in the December 2004 issue of Gospel Tidings.

Although I knew it would be hard to encapsulate Revelation in one issue, I wanted to summarize what we learned, in the hope of whetting your appetite for more study. Brother McGuiggan, via e-mail, graciously gave his encouragement and his permission quote his video lessons and his writings as appropriate. Robert Lee and Chuck Huffine shared the work with me and provided valuable articles for this issue. In the course of our study, note-taking, workbook entries, drafts and revisions, we may have actually quoted McGuiggan in places without realizing it, in which case we apologize.

The videos I mentioned (DVDs) are available from Gospel Tidings Bookstore, as are Jim McGuiggan’s books, including The Kingdom of God and the Planet Earth, The Reign of God, commentaries on Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and Revelation, and several other titles. You can also get a taste of his teaching on Revelation at his web site: www.jimmcguiggan.com.

. We surely haven’t answered all questions about the book, but perhaps we will have at least stirred your interest in knowing more about it.. I hope we have managed to convey the essence of the book, which was described in these two words by a boy Jim McGuiggan told us about: "We win!"                                                                                                         ---Travis Allen