Tommy Mann

Have you ever watched a controlled demolition? I have never seen one in person, but several times the local news has shown an old building come down. Dynamite is strategically placed throughout the building, and when it is detonated, the building will implode and come crumbling down. It is really amazing how quickly a dilapidated structure can be leveled, especially when you think about how long it took to erect it. People spent months planning and drawing, then carefully constructing until the building was finished; sometimes it takes years to move from a concept to completion.  Years to build, and gone in minutes.  There are two types of crews involved in this lifecycle of a building: the construction crew and the demolition crew. One specializes in building up and the other in blowing up.  It seems that people can be divided into those same two groups. Some people love to build others up, and some, it seems, enjoy tearing others down. Our words have the power to do bot...

In school we learned about the process of metamorphosis, where a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. On average, a caterpillar will spend about two weeks in a cocoon before it emerges looking like an entirely different creature. The before and after picture are quite stark.  The word metamorphosis is not just in our textbooks, but in the Bible as well. In Mark 9:2 we read, "And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them." The word translated as transfigured is the Greek word metamorpho.   (Matthew also uses the word metamorpho , and together, these are the only two times that word appears in the Bible) On the mountain Jesus underwent a metamorphosis, completely changing His appearance. It did not happen gradually over two weeks; He did not enter a cocoon in order to change. The Greek text indic...

It is that time of year again where there is plenty of work to be done outside. Just yesterday I was weed eating and got myself into a tangled web of thorny vines, which poked me through my clothes, and stuck into my skin. I am yet to meet a person who likes thorns; instead, I hear people jokingly blame Adam for the very existence of these nuisances.  There is someone in the Bible who notoriously disliked thorns, and that was Paul. In 2 Corinthians 12:7 he wrote, "So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited." What was this thorn in his flesh? There has been much speculation over the centuries, but the truth is we do not know. Using a thorn as a metaphor, Paul complained that something was bothering him. This thorn "was given to" him from God to keep him humble, and yet it was a messenger of Satan. It seems that Go...

We don't use the word naughty very often, but when we do, we are usually thinking of one of the two lists found in the North Pole. "He's making a list, he's checking it twice, he's gonna find out who's naughty and nice." We associate the word with disobedience, or the opposite of being nice. But naughty actually derives from the Old English naught, which means zero, or having no value. The King James uses that word in Proverbs 6:12: "A naughty person, a wicked man, walketh with a froward mouth." The ESV says worthless rather than naughty.  A person who is naught-y is a worthless person, someone who contributes nothing because he is living in sin.   On the other end of the spectrum, just a few verses later, is the haughty person. Verse 16 says there are seven things the Lord hates, and the first one on the list is haughty eyes, which is an old way of referring to pride and arrogance, someone who never drops his gaze, but turns his nose up in the a...

Have you ever heard someone ask that? "What gives you the right?" They can be asking that about any number of things:  What gives you the right to tell me what to do? What gives you the right to take that? What gives you the right to go in there? When that question is asked, it is because someone has done something they probably did not have permission to do; they are overstepping, and got called on it. Someone has assumed a right for himself that he did not have. Now imagine someone claiming to be a child of God. That is an audacious claim, teetering on blasphemy. A mere mortal saying he is God's child. What gives you the right to say you are God's child!?  The Bible tells us where we get that right: it is our faith. John 1:12 says, "But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God." The word "believed" is better understood as trusted in. This is more than just intellectually agreeing to a fact;...

An old lazy couple was sitting in their rocking chairs and staring into the fireplace. The wife, believing it was raining but too lazy to get up and look out the window, told her husband to go see if rain really was falling. Too lazy to get up himself, the husband thought about it for a moment and then said, "Ah, just call in the dog and see if he's wet."  Some people will do anything to get out of doing something. In his proverbs, King Solomon had nothing good to say about lazy people, and nothing but good to say about those who work hard. The lazy he called slothful and sluggards, and the workers he called diligent and wise.  In Proverbs 14:23 Solomon said "In all toil there is profit." In 10:26 he compared said lazy people are as irritating as vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes.  But my favorite anecdote about the slothful person is found in 19:24--"The sluggard buries his hand in the dish and will not even bring it to his mouth."  In a simi...