Tommy Mann

When it comes to peace, some people are peacekeepers and some are peacemakers. The former simply shoots for keeping the peace, not rocking the boat or ruffling feathers, while the latter proactively strives to make peace where there is none.  The peacekeeper does not want to hurt feelings. These people will kick the can down the road rather than deal with a problem. There may be trouble brewing beneath the surface, but as long as things are not exploding at the moment, the peacekeeper will keep on keeping on. The peacemaker recognizes the coming confrontation and seeks to get out in front of it, to even prevent it from happening by brokering peace between the warring factions.  In his book on dealing with conflict, titled Firestorm, pastor Ron Susek wrote, "While peacekeepers try to sweep things under the rug, peacemakers try to sweep things out the door." (p.126) Those who are non-confrontational may avoid being peacemakers because they dread the difficult conversations that...

We need to give careful consideration to the way we choose to go.  Things have definitely improved for me thanks to GPS, but before we had these technologies we needed to plan ahead. If we didn't know how to get somewhere, we needed to ask for directions or look at a map. We also needed to think about things like road construction, traffic patterns at different times of day, or whether or not we wanted to pay tolls. The GPS allows us to consider these options, but we still have to make choices about our route.  That is the idea behind what Solomon told his son. In Proverbs 4:26 he wrote, "Ponder the path of your feet, then your ways will be sure."  The Hebrew word translated as ponder is used four times in the Bible, and each time it is translated into a different English word. The best definition seems to be "to weigh," so the instruction in this proverb is to weigh all the options, then make the best decision.  We might plan on going a certain way, or leaving ...

Matthew, Mark, and Luke each contain the account of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness by the devil. Satan told Jesus to turn stones into bread in order to feed Himself; he told Jesus to bow down to him; and he told Jesus to dive off of the temple and see if the angels would save Him. Jesus responded to each temptation by quoting Scripture, saying, "It is written...Again, it is written...for it is written..." (Matthew 4:4, 7, 10) The devil does not tempt us in those exact ways because we do not have the ability to turn stones to bread, and no guardian angels are waiting to catch us if we do a swan dive from a sky rise. He rarely tells people to bow down to him; there are very few devil worshippers.  And yet those are the basic temptations he uses because they follow the same framework. He tempts us to turn stones into bread when he tries to get us to doubt that God will provide for our needs. He tempts us to bow to him when he tries to get us to live life for ourselves rat...

Although we don’t know the date that Jesus was born, December 25 th is when we celebrate the event, where God came near in order to make salvation available. In Matthew 1:21 an angel visited Joseph and told him, “[Mary] will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” Christmas is a big deal. Without it there would be no Calvary, no empty tomb, and no hope of heaven. It is great news for us. We have everything to gain because of Christmas. It is the celebration of the incarnation—where God put on flesh and made His dwelling among us. It is Immanuel—God with us. Salvation is a free gift to us, but it cost Jesus tremendously. Think about the cost of Christmas, what Jesus gave up in order to come save His people from their sins.   He traded the comfort of angels for the company of animals He traded the dignity of heaven for the drabness of earth He traded splendor for squalor   He went from adore to abhor He went from being served...

Have you ever seen a bread tree? It would be nice if loaves of bread grew right on their branches, and all we had to do was pluck them and eat. In their book The Shaping of Things to Come , Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch address the question of why God didn't just create a bread tree. They wrote, "He prefers to offer us a grain and invite us to buy a field and plant the seed. He prefers that we till the soil while He sends the rain. He prefers that we harvest the crop while He sends sunshine. He prefers that we grind the crop and knead it and bake it while He gives us air in our lungs and strength in our arms. Why? Because He would rather that we become partners with Him in creation."  I agree with those authors, and believe we can apply that same way of thinking to our money. Most churches probably have a wish list, things they would love to do if only they could afford it. We dream about doing things, and say, "If someone gave us a million dollars, I would use the m...

There is an interesting figure mentioned in the book of Jeremiah. In 7:18 we learn, “The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven.” Who is this queen of heaven? She is only mentioned here and three times in chapter 44, where the Israelites insist they will continue to worship her instead of the Lord.   Most scholars believe this was Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess of war and fertility. Archaeologists have discovered statues and other images of her in ancient Israel, a place where Ishtar never should have been, but King Manasseh imported idol worship during his reign. This was a silly primitive practice.  But today there is a modern queen of heaven that is just as silly to worship. Roman Catholics use this title for Mary, the human mother of Jesus. They pray to her, asking her to ask her Son to do things for them, not realizing they can talk directly to her Son and enter “boldly before the throne of grace (He...

  On the night of the Tenth Plague in Egypt God told Moses He was going to pass through the land and strike down all the firstborn, but He would spare each household where the blood of a spotless lamb was applied to the outside of the door.   Exodus 12:23 says, “For the LORD will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the LORD will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.”   God was clear. He was going to pass through, but for some He would pass over.    That is not just an old story, but serves as a model of what is going to happen in the future. God has promised to return, and when the Lord comes again He will come in judgment. John the Baptist said His winnowing fork will be in His hand (Luke 3:17). Jesus said He would separate the wheat from the chaff (Matthew 13:24-30); in another passage He said He would divide the sheep from the goats (Matthew ...

  The devil is no fan of God’s Word, and he doesn’t want you to be one either. I believe he knows Scripture. He has been around for a long time, and he has probably read it from cover to cover. There is no way he is ignorant of the Bible. I believe he knows what it says, and he hates it.     He also knows that the more you read it and understand it, the better off you will be. Since the devil hates God yet can’t beat Him, he wants to hurt God by leading people to reject God. He does that by attacking the Bible.    Think about it: he was the first to question the Bible when he said to Eve, “Did God  really  say…?” (Genesis 3:1) He was the first to deny the Bible when he told her, “You will not surely die.” (Genesis 3:4)  And he was the first to take the Bible out of context when he told Jesus, “Throw yourself down, for He will command His angels concerning you, ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”...

  A few months after Bob broke off his engagement to Sally, he received this letter from her out of the blue:   My dearest Bob. I have not been myself since you called off the wedding. I miss you terribly. I have been unable to sleep, I have no appetite, and no desire to do anything at all. I cannot control my emotions. Each day a million little reminders of you cause me to burst into tears and cry uncontrollably. If you would only take me back, I will be the happiest girl in the world. Please know that I love you so!    P.s. Congratulations on winning the 107 million dollar Powerball.     Sally might not have had the purest motive for wanting to reconcile with Bob, but that should be the goal of any believers who are in conflict. In Matthew 5:23-24 Jesus said, “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother,...

  One of Jesus’ disciples gave us a great reason to show love. 1 Peter 4:8 says, “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.”   I have always liked that phrase, “Love covers a multitude of sins.” The Greek word means to hide or conceal something. But better than a dictionary definition is the graphic image another disciple gave us in his gospel. Describing the event where Jesus calmed the storm with just His words, Matthew 8:24 says, “And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but He was asleep.”   Matthew described the boat as being swamped by the storm.  Swamped  is the same Greek word translated as  covers  by Peter. The storm that threatened to claim the lives of the disciples violently covered their fishing boat. This was an aggressive covering.   Our love should have that same type of aggression. Greek scholar Kenneth Wuest wrote of this verb, “...

  Is pride ever a good thing? What if pride is used to bring about good?   In the classic novel  Pride and Prejudice,  Jane Austen crafts this dialogue between the heroine Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Wickham:   Wickham: “It is wonderful…for almost all [Darcy’s] actions may be traced to pride; and pride has often been his best friend. It has connected him nearer with virtue than any other feeling…”   Elizabeth: “Can such abominable pride as his, have ever done him good?”   Wickham: “Yes. It has often led him to be liberal and generous—to give his money freely, to display hospitality, to assist his tenants, and relieve the poor.”   In the book Mr. Wickham wrongly led Elizabeth to believe Mr. Darcy was a man of great pride. Darcy’s generosity was supposedly based only on his desire for people to know how wealthy he was.    How much charity is done from a place of pride? Are you the kind of person who makes a large donation, not for the cause, ...

Well, the Golden Bachelor is getting divorced. Fans of the ABC reality show were surprised to learn the couple that captured their hearts last season were wed for exactly 100 days (about two days for each day of filming the show). I’m not picking on Gerry and Theresa, but do we really expect a competition to be the foundation of a covenantal relationship? This man went from one date to the next, making out with women and telling them he loved them, only to agonize over picking a winner. That isn’t exactly the stuff of fairy tales.    That this is considered entertainment speaks to a broader problem in this country. Other reality shows, such as 90 Day Fiancé, prove this point. Turn on any sitcom and the bachelor life is glamorized while the married man has to sneak around the “old ball and chain.” Hebrews 13:4 says, “Let marriage be held in honor among all,” but it is not held in honor in pop culture.    People can enter into these ill-advised marriages because they h...

  I love oxymorons. An oxymoron is a figure of speech that combines contradictory terms, like small crowd, jumbo shrimp, original copy, and old news. We use oxymorons when we call a painting pretty ugly, or a comedian seriously funny. Even the word oxymoron is a combination of the prefix meaning “keen” and the word for foolish.   Oxymorons are funny and make things easier to remember. The author of Hebrews employed a clever oxymoron in 4:11 when he wrote, “Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.”   Strive, of course, means to work hard. Work hard at resting. Those two concepts would typically cancel each other out, but the author instructs us to work at rest.    What does he mean by entering rest? In the previous passage he looked back at the exodus when the ancient Israelites crossed the Jordan River into the Promised Land. Joshua 21:44 says the Lord gave them rest as they were able to settle down an...

Are we really supposed to believe that there is some evil spirit that goes around the world tempting people to sin? That might work in children’s church lessons, but are grownups still expected to believe in an actual devil?   Professor Jeffrey Burton Russell wrote extensively about the devil, including his book  The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity.  He posed the question, “What, really, is the Devil? This is comparable to the question: What, really, is art? Absolute answers to such questions are not attainable.” He went on to write, “evil has no ontological being and can therefore strictly speaking have no essence.”    Russell’s point is that the devil is a myth, simply “the personification of evil [1] .” Throughout time people have sought to explain the existence of evil in the world, and rather than blaming whatever god they worship, they assign blame to a malevolent devil.    But if we believe the Bible is God’s ...

  There is an old story about the great preacher D.L. Moody. One of his pastoral students once tried to impress his mentor, so he told him how he and a group of his friends had stayed awake all night in a prayer meeting. The student approached Moody and said, “Do you know where we have been? We have been talking to God all night. Don’t you see how our faces shine?”   The preacher was not impressed with this display of piety, and responded by quoting from Exodus 34:29, “Moses did not know that his face was shining.”    Moody was referring to the time Moses ascended Mt Sinai to receive the law from God. The verse that follows the one quoted above says, “Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.” But as Moody reminded his arrogant disciple, Moses was unaware of his own glowing face. Everyone else saw what Moses could not see.    When we do something spiritual, like spending the ...

  Everybody likes the thought of “happily ever after.” We want to find someone to spend the rest of our lives with, a person who will be by our side through thick and thin. We give rings as a token of our promise and make vows that say “until death do us part.” We want to live together and hope that only a coffin will separate us.    In accent times there was a common expression of love where someone would say, “We will live together and die together.” This thought captured the idea of being bound together for the rest of time. Paul took that sentiment and tweaked it a little when he wrote the letter of Second Corinthians. After having to scold the Corinthian Christians for their stubbornness, Paul wrote, “I do not say this to condemn you, for I said before that you are in our hearts, to die together and to live together (7:3).”   Paul reversed the order, and for good reason. Rather than “live together and die together,” he planned to die together and then live toget...

“Help Wanted” “Apply Today” “We’re Hiring!” We see these signs everywhere. If you are looking for a job, this is a great market. Unfortunately, the market does not feel great for those who are trying to fill these vacancies, and for the patrons who are feeling the effects of the labor shortage. The service industry in particular has been hit hard; your favorite fast food restaurant may or may not be open, depending on whether or not enough people show up to work that day. When they are open, service is slow at many places. It is taking an unusual amount of time to get things because the labor shortage has impacted the shipping industry. In May our church ordered a new appliance, and we were told it would arrive in June—of next year, thirteen months away! It is taking an unusual amount of time to get places because the labor shortage has impacted the airline industry. Flights are being cancelled at the last minute because pilots are in short supply. This labor shortage is frustrating, a...

An old Chinese proverb tells of a mother who was distraught over the loss of her child. She was overcome with sorrow, and feeling that she would never be able to get on with her life, finally decided to visit a local philosopher. The aged gentleman told the grieving mother that he could bring her son back from the dead if she would just bring him some mustard seeds. But there was a catch. The seeds had to come from a household where no one had ever experienced suffering. The desperate woman went from house to house, investigating every family in the village. What she discovered was that sorrow is common to every person.  That proverb contains a great truth on the reality of suffering. It is an unfortunate part of life. But I like that the philosopher chose, of all things, to request mustard seeds because that is what Jesus used to teach on faith. He said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and i...

  Before he became the sixteenth President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer in Illinois. On one occasion a man came to see Lincoln about hiring him for a lawsuit. This gentleman felt as if he had been wronged by another man, and he was determined to take him to court and seek $2.50 in damages.    Lincoln felt that this man was being petty and even tried to talk him out of the suit. But the man could not be dissuaded. He wanted more than a few bucks; he wanted revenge. After thinking about it, Lincoln decided to take the case, but he raised his usual rate. For his services Lincoln was going to charge ten dollars. The client agreed and paid the money.    The future President took $2.50 from his fee, gave it to the defendant, and told him to plead guilty. The plaintiff literally paid himself the money he was owed, and to Lincoln’s amazement, he was proud of himself at the trial’s conclusion. It was never about justice or getting what was rightfull...

I John 4:8 says, “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” The love of God is a frequent theme in the Bible. Perhaps the most famous verse in all of Scripture begins with the words, “For God so loved the world…” We even see God’s love back in the Old Testament. Jeremiah 31:2-3 says, “Thus says the Lord…‘I have loved you with an everlasting love.’”     Not only do these verses teach us the succinct truth that God is love, but they highlight the fact that God’s love is outside of time. In fact, God’s love is eternal. Love is part of God’s nature; it is not just something that He chooses to do, it is who God is. God is love.    Philosophers have used this great doctrine as an attack against God. The critique goes like this: God claims to be a God of love, but before He created mankind, there was no one for Him to love. Thus, God’s love relies on humanity. God cannot be loving unless we exist, so God becomes dependent upon His creation....