John 2's Birthday

Forty years ago today, at precisely 12:44pm, our son John Marshall II was born in Metairie (New Orleans) LA. Those were seminary days for Ruth and me. We drove back and forth from New Orleans to Grenada MS (600 miles round trip) every weekend. Ruth missed making the trip only one weekend. John 2 grew up thinking a car was his other home. He still enjoys riding in a car.

John has made us proud. We have watched him walk through adversity with grace and gentleness. He has carried through life burdens heavier than I have had to bear.

Through it all, John 2 has stayed faithful. He loves Jesus!! He is a great teacher and preacher. He has also been effective as a Pastor. He is a seventh generation preacher.

He and Amanda are a precious couple. We love them both dearly, and rejoice in the fact they will in December be giving us a 7th grandchild (number 5 for them).

Happy birthday, Son.

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Jefferson's Religious Views

When seeking to discern people's religious beliefs, we must let them speak for themselves. The best, most succinct, understanding of Jefferson's religious beliefs was clearly spelled out in a letter he wrote at Monticello in his older years (June 26, 1822) to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse.

In the letter, Jefferson was very candid. He said the true, reliable doctrines of Jesus were: 1) There is only one God; He is all perfect; 2) There is a future state of rewards and punishments; 3) To love God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself, is the sum of religion.

To make doubly sure he was clearly expressing his beliefs, Jefferson in the same letter absolutely rejected Calvinism, saying it wrongly taught: 1) There are three Gods; 2) Good works are nothing; 3) Faith is everything; 4) Reason in religion is unlawful; 5) God elected certain individuals to be saved, and certain others to be damned.

In this letter, Jefferson called himself a Unitarian, and wrote, "I trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die an Unitarian." I think this designation of himself as a Unitarian is, in modern parlance, the most accurate description of his religious beliefs.

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Baptists Loved Thomas Jefferson

When discussing non-Baptists who influenced religious freedom, Thomas Jefferson has to be mentioned. He was without doubt the Baptists' unparalleled, most loved political figure. To them, he was a pantheon of one.

A persistent legend involves the influence Baptists had on Jefferson in the years before the Revolution. Dolly Madison, late in life, supposedly confirmed that Baptists influenced Jefferson. She remembered him saying it was a Baptist church from which his views were gathered.

Familiar with a Baptist church near his home, he let its democracy influence his thinking of a pattern for the colonies. He allegedly said Baptist church government is the only form of pure democracy in the world. He concluded it would be the best plan of government for the colonies.

Andrew Tribble served as Pastor of the small Baptist church. It met monthly. Jefferson attended its meetings for several consecutive months, and had Tribble in his home to discuss Baptist philosophy of self-governing. Thus says the folklore.

The Baptist/Jefferson love affair is complicated to unravel. Jefferson's opponents accused him of being an atheist. He refuted these claims, and through all the accusations against him, Baptists stayed true to him. They were tired of being persecuted, and considered him their ideal statesman, though his religious views were diametrically opposed to theirs.

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I Owe Wm. Penn

No discussion of religious freedom in the USA is complete without mentioning the extraordinary efforts of William Penn. King Charles II owed the Penn family $80,000. Penn, hoping to establish a haven for the persecuted, asked the King to pay him with wilderness land in America.

In 1681 King Charles II gave William Penn the largest territory ever granted a British subject and named it Pennsylvania. Penn gave his life to what he called the "holy experiment", granting absolute religious freedom, and proactively pursuing and recruiting immigrants. He invited the persecuted everywhere to come to his colony.

My family and I owe a personal debt to Penn. My Wilcox ancestors (through Grandma Hill) were on his ship on his last trip to Penn's Woods. The bulk of our Wilcox's remained Quakers for nearly two centuries.

         

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My Daughter-in-law

Today is Amanda's birthday. When my son and grandsons were needing a wife and mom to bless them, Ruth and I prayed with all our might for God to send a miracle-lady into their lives. The Lord abundantly supplied way above and beyond our wildest dreams.

I knew Amanda long before she married John. She was and is one of the greatest singers I ever heard in my life. We all knew and know that when she touches a microphone, every listener is about to be blessed.

In these last few years, she has proven to be an angel of mercy to all of us. She and John 2 are madly in love. She adopted both the boys, not only legally, but also in her heart. She has been a precious gift to them.

She has given Ruth and me two more precious grandchildren, and another is on the way, due in December (maybe on my birthday). To make things even more special, Amanda's parents have now moved here from Ohio. We are enjoying them immensely.

Happy birthday, Amanda. May you have many more. God smiles on us through you.

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Let God Wow Us

We by nature do not like open-ended situations. We desperately want resolution, congruence, in our thinking, but every day presents us unanswerable questions. This is what our existence consists of: inexplicable realities beyond our ability to figure out totally.

Much of life is unfathomable. Should this be a problem to us? Do we want it any other way? Would we prefer a God whose ways are plain and simple, who is boring, easy to figure out, and not transcendent? Doesn't the fact some circumstances are beyond us cause us to be in awe of our God even more? Don't we want God to be in the wow?

Living in this irreconcilable dynamic tension is what it means to live by faith. If all things were obvious and easy, we would be living by sight.

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Three Book Reviews

Dr. John 3:16 Marshall, Pastor
Second Baptist Church
3111 E. Battlefield Road
Springfield MO 65804
417-887-3111 x110

Twitter @john316marshall
www.facebook.com/john316marshallUsually I read books, put them on the shelf, and don't touch them again. That always bugs me. This time I want to say something about three books I finished reading this week.

"Young, Restless, and No Longer Reformed" by Austin Fischer is a strong argument against 5-point Calvinism. No book on this subject could be 100% right, but this is for sure a good read on the issue.

"In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day" by Mark Batterson challenges people to take life by the horns and try heroic things. Mark is a graduate of our local CBC and is Pastor of one of the largest churches in the USA.

"The Richest Man in Babylon" by George Clason uses a novel as the vehicle through which wise principles of finance are taught. It's a classic. 1.5 million copies sold.

Happy reading.

First Mothers' Examples

Steve Whisler compiled this list from my Mothers Day sermon on how first mothers influenced their President-sons religiously. Enjoy.

1.   Let your children see you doing your private time with God.
2.   Let your children hear you praying for them individually by name.
3.   Teach your children to be kind to everyone.
4.   Teach your children to love the Bible.
5.   Redeem meal times (God is present).
6.   Pass on the heritage of righteousness. Rehearse the stories of how and when family members came to faith.
7.   Relationships, not rules, are the most important part of serving God.
8.   Take your children to church.
9.   Let your children see you doing the Lord's work.
10.Teach your children God exists and can be trusted.

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Mary Ball Washington

The first First Mother, Mary Ball Washington, retired each evening with a religious book. In Fredericksburg, Virginia, she had a favorite "meditation rock", which was said to be her favorite retreat for reading and prayer. At her request, she was buried a few steps from Meditation Rock.

George Washington said of her, "My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her."

Mothers, what you do matters. Let your children see you doing daily private time with God. Avoid ostentation but do set the example.

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Truman and Ike's Moms

Before Harry Truman was five years old, his mother Martha had used her large-print Bible to teach him how to read. He said by the time he was thirteen years old, he had read this "old Bible three times through".

Mothers, what you do matters. Teach your children to love the Bible. You will not be around forever to coach your children spiritually, nor will they probably stay in the same church always. The Bible can for a lifetime be the ever-present, tangible reminder and initiator of faith.

Ida Eisenhower had her sons read the Bible at the dining table. If one of them made a mistake while reading, he had to pass the Bible to the next brother. A church once awarded her a citation for memorizing 1,365 Bible verses. About this time, she gave Dwight a watch for reading all the Bible.

Mothers, what you do matters. Redeem meal times. Turn them into mini-worship-services. Let them be built-in reminders of God.