This means that my walk among Christians as a Jew is ... challenging. Christians don't typically have the same ferocious dedication to understanding that Jews do; as a result, many things get expressed that simply don't hold up under the glare of history and understanding.
This is a struggle for me, because it's a constant prodding to correct and instruct and educate.
This correction and education is unfair and unnecessary; it's my struggle, not
On Monday nights, my church has a men's core training class, where a set of men get together to study books of the Bible together. Last semester, we went through the book of James (which ended up with me starting this blog in an attempt to do more as part of a Christian life); this semester, we have the books of Jonah and Nahum as material.
I've been thinking about the book of Jonah, since it's what we're covering first. One thing jumps out at me: what did Jonah say to Nineveh?
Last week, our Sunday School teacher had a couple of really interesting points while talking about Philippians 4:4. This is the one that reads something like this:
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.
Our teacher, who works at a HVAC company, was pointing out the difference between a thermometer and a thermostat.
A thermometer is something that measures temperature; a thermostat is something that controls temperature, assuming your AC is working properly, of course.
So how does that apply to Philippians 4:4? Well, the command ("rejoice!") is a thermostat-type command, not a measurement.
It means that we are not to find joy, passively, but to see joy in our being in God's will.
It means that our circumstances are able to control our happiness, but not our joy. Our happiness comes and goes; that's normal. I could have been happy if my team had won on Thursday; I can be unhappy that it lost. That said, whether I'm happy in my external circumstances or not does not affect my joy.
