Looking Ahead

One of my friends from college sent a text alerting a few of us that he ran into an old professor of ours. Dr. Caulley taught Greek, upper-level Bible courses, and a freshman-level class called “Life and Teaching of Jesus.” That class was my first real introduction to college. Here was a guy lecturing without any prepared notes on slides or overhead (yes, I’m that old!). It was entirely up to the student to decide what was important enough to write in their notes! He read the Scriptures from his Greek New Testament; it was intense for a freshman.

My friend, after alerting us of a Dr. Caulley sighting, asked if we still had outstanding “epistle questions” missing. These were essays that were due periodically throughout the semester. Occasionally, as a student who never let his education get in the way of college, I would fall behind a little and need to catch up on these essay questions. On one such night, I was working away on this assignment, answering a semester’s worth of these questions before I would receive no credit for the work. It was getting late, approaching midnight, and my roommate kept asking for me to walk to the convenience store and buy a soda with him. Over and over, he asked, and over and over, I replied, “I have to finish this homework.” Finally, he asked one more time, and as I rebuffed the request, he turned and started to walk away, tripping over the power cord to my computer, unplugging the machine, and deleting a semester’s worth of work. I had failed to save the work as I went, and none of it was “restored” when I turned the computer back on. I turned to my roommate and said, “Let’s go get a diet coke.”

Have you ever looked at an old car or piece of furniture and wished that you had the time, money, and talent to restore the antique to its former glory? Wallula is a part of a movement of churches sometimes described as the “Restoration Movement.” This description came about because the goal of these churches is to restore the modern church to look and act like the “early church.” This Sunday we are beginning a new study, “Last Chance Church,” that begins our examination of 2 Corinthians. I love what one scholar said about the church in Corinth. 

“When we speak of restoring the NT church, the Corinthian church is not what we have in mind. But maybe this is where we should really start: a real community of believers struggling to understand and implement their Christian faith against the helter-skelter backdrop of values and principles they desired to leave behind. As we understand what Paul teaches this troubled church, we will learn badly needed principles to help bring to maturity our own, real churches which inherit the same struggle.”

My life, your life, our church, sure are not perfect, but we want to model our lives after Christ the best we can. We want our church to be His hands and feet in the world. I am so glad that God offers second, third, even last chances to restore our lives to following Him. Bring your family, invite your friends to Wallula this Sunday for the beginning of this great series!

I hope to see you Sunday!

Lance

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.

2 Corinthians 4:16