The Humility of Uncertainty (Friday Devotional)

“Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him. Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.””

- Mark 8:27-33

Some of the most beloved characters in children’s literature are a family of bears (Mama, Papa, Brother, Sister, and Honey) who live in a treehouse in Bear Country, learning life lessons from one another. You likely know this fictional family well, especially if you’re a parent or grandparent. So here’s the question: are they called the Bearenstein Bears (with an ‘e’) or the Bearenstain Bears (with an ‘a’)?

When I stumbled upon that question, I knew the answer without even thinking. I could see it plain as day in my mind’s eye. “With an ‘e’,” I said. Wrong. Feel free to double check, but you’ll find the same thing I did, that the Bearenstain Bears were written and illustrated for over 40 years by Stan and Jan Bearenstain. That ‘e’ I remembered so vividly in the name just isn’t there.

That’s just one example of something called the “Mandela Effect,” a phenomenon in which a false memory is held among a large group of people (it’s named after another false memory that emerged upon the death of Nelson Mandela in 2010. Hundreds of people were surprised by the news, having incorrectly remembered him dying in prison in the 1980s.) What is most striking to me about the Mandela Effect is not the fallibility of our memories, or even the way such false memories are somehow commonly held—what I find amazing is how certain we can be about something that isn’t true. Had you asked me to bet $50 on how “Bearenstain” was spelled, I probably would have taken you up on it; I was that sure I was right. After all, it was something I knew with absolute certainty—but as it turns out, my certainty was no match for the unexpected truth.

In the above passage, Simon Peter learned that lesson all too well. When he said he believed Jesus was the Messiah, he was showing tremendous faith, but only moments later he proved that his faith was limited by misunderstanding. He had a fixed view of how the Messiah ought to behave—primarily as a political revolutionary—and upon hearing Jesus correct that understanding with predictions of betrayal and suffering and death, the security of his certainty was pierced. His faith was not ready to withstand the unexpected.

As Holy Week approaches, we welcome the familiar beats of the story: the hosannas of Palm Sunday, the bread and wine of Maundy Thursday, the long walk to Calvary on Friday, and, of course, the joy of Easter Sunday’s empty tomb. But because of that familiarity, we risk repeating Peter’s mistake: we risk thinking we have God all figured out. In truth, Holy Week was full of surprises. God’s plan for salvation was one nobody but Jesus saw coming. The cheering masses waving palm branches didn’t expect Jesus’s revolution to be spiritual instead of political, the disciples didn’t expect one of their own to betray their Lord, and no one expected Jesus’s story to continue past Friday morning. But again and again throughout that holiest of weeks, God subverted expectations: leading by serving, overpowering by submitting, saving by dying.

So as the church prepares to move into Holy Week, let me encourage you to approach each day, each story, and each moment of worship with humility, ready for God to teach you something new. Whether it’s the first time or the thousandth time you’ve heard these stories, God can use them to bring you closer to Him, if only you will come with an open heart and ears to hear. Approaching Holy Week with a spirit of certainty about God, sure that you know exactly who He is and what His plans are for you, offers the security of predictability. But perhaps an attitude of faith—believing even when you’re not certain—is a more suitable tribute to the risen Lord.

Anger Management (Friday Devotional)

“You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.”

- Matthew 5:21-22

As my son transitions from baby to toddler, tantrums are becoming a more regular part of life in the Camp household. If Lindsey and I take too long to lift him out of his crib when he wakes up, he’ll voice his displeasure. If he sees one of us eating something we haven’t offered him yet, he’ll let us know he doesn’t appreciate it. If he wants to be picked up, he’ll tell us by raising both his arms and his volume. You can’t blame him—until he picks up a few more words, yelling and crying are basically the only ways he can communicate that he’s upset.

I’ve noticed something interesting about his outbursts, whether they’re brief yelps for attention or extended fits: his anger is only at situations, never people. The moment we pick him up, he goes from distraught to affectionate; as soon as we share our food with him, he goes from screaming at us to smiling at us. Up to this point, holding a grudge is foreign to him—he may be mad at what you’re doing, but he’s never mad at you.

In a time when outrage is practically the coin of the realm, Jesus suggests that we might be able to learn something from our little ones. Feeling angry is not a sin—after all, wrath is a characteristic of God, and Jesus was clearly angry when he cleansed the temple of its greedy and unjust money changers. But while anger is not automatically sinful, it is dangerous, because outrage at a circumstance can become hatred of a person before you even realize it’s happened. When your anger compels you to insult your neighbor instead of love him, it has become a stumbling block to your relationship with God.

Anger that is based in self-righteousness instead of justice, that is destructive instead of constructive, has no place in the kingdom of God. Disciples of Christ are called to be agents of redemption, to extend love to enemies and grace to sinners, and you can’t do that if you’re seeing someone as a problem instead of a person. So take a cue from the cross and the little children to whom Jesus said the kingdom of God belongs: never let your anger at someone’s behavior stop you from loving them.

Unimprovable (Friday Devotional)

“Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.”

- Deuteronomy 4:2

Fifteen years ago, it seemed like every grocery store was installing self-checkout machines, cashier-less stations where you could scan, bag, and pay for your own items without ever needing to speak to another person. When I first saw one, I thought it was not only a cool idea, but a technological marvel, the Next Big Thing in shopping.

Then I tried to use one. It turns out that the failsafe on all of these machines was to alert a manager anytime a self-checker did something incorrectly. If you didn’t put your item in a bag in a timely fashion—ding!—here came the manager. If your barcode accidentally scanned twice and you needed correct the error—ding!—here came the manager. If your credit card didn’t scan on the first try—ding!—here came the manager. On any given day, it seemed like 75% of self-checkout purchases wound up being overseen by a harried store manager. Within a few years, the machines vanished without fanfare, not to reappear for a decade. A modernization designed to save time for customers and employees alike had ended up doing the opposite.

Those ahead-of-their-time self-checkout machines illustrated a point we are often loath to admit: innovation doesn’t always equal improvement. That’s a principle we’d do well to remember when it comes to what we believe about God and how we practice our faith. Because we’ve had the gospel for nearly 2,000 years, there is a natural tendency to get restless with it, to want something new and innovative to replace the ancient words of Jesus and the apostles. Guided by this restlessness, the temptation is to interpret Scripture through the lens of your own agendas instead of making God’s Word the foundation of what you believe.

But since the days of Moses, God has warned us, “Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it.” Cultural values are always shifting, but the wisdom of God’s Word abides, as useful for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness as when it was first given to the church. From an abundance of grace, God has given us what we need to live for Him, and we don’t have to go searching for something new to replace or supplement it. In a constantly changing world, find your foundation in the one whose power and love are unchanging.

Never Abandoned (Friday Devotional)

“There you will serve other gods made by human hands, objects of wood and stone that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. From there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him if you search after him with all your heart and soul. In your distress, when all these things have happened to you in time to come, you will return to the Lord your God and heed him. Because the Lord your God is a merciful God, he will neither abandon you nor destroy you; he will not forget the covenant with your ancestors that he swore to them.”

- Deuteronomy 4:28-31

Sometimes one mistake is all it takes for you to give up on someone. For example, let’s say your hairdresser’s hand slips when she’s giving you a trim, and you wind up with a bob cut you didn’t ask for. Are you likely to go back to her? Or imagine if you were in a car accident and your insurance company failed to get you a dime, even though the accident wasn’t your fault.  Wouldn’t you go shopping for a new company? In each of these instances, most people would adopt a one-strike-and-you’re-out policy.

But now imagine a different scenario: your best friend forgets to pick you up from the airport, even though he promised he’d be there on time. As irritated as you’d be, you probably wouldn’t call him up to announce that the friendship was over effective immediately. His mistake would have consequences for how you treated each other down the line, it would affect the friendship, but it wouldn’t end it.

The reason, of course—and what separates your friend’s mistake from the other two—is that you have a close personal relationship with your friend. While your relationship with your hairdresser or insurance company is strictly business, your relationship with your friend is built upon shared experiences, common interests, and ultimately love for one another. Mistakes that might sever a contractual agreement or a business arrangement don’t end a friendship—not because the sin as any less severe, but because the relationship is that much stronger.

In Deuteronomy, Moses reminds God’s people of the law which has been given to them and the consequences for breaking it, but he also says something instructive about the character of God—even though God knows His people will repeatedly turn away from Him, He is prepared nevertheless to mercifully welcome them back when they repent; He refuses to abandon His children or forget His covenant. His mercy is not dependent on the severity of sins, but on whether the sinner is in relationship with Him.

Sometimes we cannot help but wonder if God isn’t scoring us according to our sins, tracking our worst offenses and comparing our faithlessness to that of other sinners. Our darkest fear is that we might finally step over some invisible line, that a white lie or a lustful thought might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and causes God to give up on our sanctification. When that fear grips you, remember that God sent Jesus not to condemn you for your sins, but to save you from them—what He wants is not to see you beaten down by fear, but lifted up by grace. No sin is a match for God’s grace, and no sinner too flawed to be saved. For in the end, what matters most is not what you’ve done, but who you’ve loved.

February Reading Log

It was a short month, but I managed to get plenty of reading in. Take a look!

5 Articles I Like This Month

"The Month of Giving Dangerously" by Elizabeth Greenwood, Longreads. 25 minutes.

The author of this piece, seeking some mixture of purpose, connection with humanity, and empathy, spent a month saying "yes" to every opportunity she had to give. Whether it was tossing a few bucks to a panhandler, picking up the dinner check with friends, or giving an obnoxious stranger the benefit of the doubt, her goal was to give constantly instead of making excuses for not doing so. The experiment makes for a fun read, with some interesting insights sprinkled throughout.

"Touching Death: The Turbulent Life of One of America's Last Snake-Handling Preachers" by Jordan Ritter Conn, The Ringer. 26 minutes.

In the hills of Appalachia, the worship services of some Pentecostal churches are marked by singing, preaching, speaking in tongues...and, if the Spirit moves them, picking up venomous snakes and drinking poison. Based on an application of Mark 16:18 (a verse that is questionable to begin with, since it's not found in the earliest manuscripts of Mark's gospel), this practice is a uniquely American tradition, and one that alternately fascinates and horrifies outsiders. This profile of one of the those snake handlers does not disappoint in either regard.

"What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn" by Maggie Jones, The New York Times Magazine. 31 minutes.


A fascinating, horrifying examination of how watching pornography skews teenagers' understanding about male-female dynamics, dating, and sex. Worth reading for its statistics alone, it helps that it's extremely well-written. Nobody, from hair-on-fire moralists to lax libertines, likes to talk about porn, but this article will convince you it's time to start the conversation.

"America's Future Is Texas" by Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker. 77 minutes.

I know, I know--who wants to read the New Yorker take on Texas politics? Have no fear, Lawrence Wright is a Texas Monthly veteran, so he knows what he's talking about. And what he's talking about here is the sharp right turn Texas politics have taken in the last generation, as well as the long predicted (but still illusory) blue wave to come. Equal parts history lesson, legislative reporting, and political analysis, anyone who takes the time to read this article (it took me months to finally get to it; the article came out in July of 2017) will be rewarded.

"The Boys Are Not All Right" by Michael Ian Black, The New York Times. 4 minutes.

This short op-ed, written in the days following the Parkland shooting, goes deeper than the tired, circular arguments about gun control and mental health, arguing that a root issue behind the regularity of mass shootings is a national confusion about what it means to be masculine. This confusion, he argues (prompted mainly by the positive strides feminism has taken in the last generation), moves insecure boys and young men toward either withdrawal or rage, and rage leads to violence. Whether you agree with everything in this piece, readers of any political persuasion will likely find a kernel of truth somewhere--and walk away from it with questions and concerns.

JESUS THROUGH MIDDLE EASTERN EYES: CULTURAL STUDIES IN THE GOSPELS by Kenneth E. Bailey

Whether you realize it or not, your understanding of Christianity is fused with the conditions, values, and assumptions of Western civilization...this despite Christianity's originating in ancient Palestine. The West has given Christianity an abundance of incredible theology and hermeneutics, but so has the East. And if we take time to listen to those who live and breathe and have their being in the region where Jesus did the same, we might surprised what we learn about parts of the Bible we thought we knew forwards and backwards.

That's the idea behind this tome by Kenneth E. Bailey, the late New Testament scholar who boasted roots in both the East and the West (he was born and raised in the United States, but lived and taught for 40 years in Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, and Cyprus.) Using the wisdom of Middle Eastern commentaries only available in Arabic, historical research, and his own observations of life in the Middle East, Bailey walks through nearly 30 different gospel passages, from Jesus's miracles to his parables, offering fresh perspectives from a different point of view than the traditional western interpretations.

In most chapters, I walked away with at least an interesting exegetical tidbit I'd never read elsewhere; in some I was given an entirely new understanding of a passage I thought I had all figured out. This book, which I had been putting off reading for years, intimidated by its size (436 pages) and academic heft, is an invaluable reference tool, and one that was a pleasure to dive in every day over the last month. Highly recommended for preachers, teachers, and academicians.

HOW TO BE A PERFECT CHRISTIAN: YOUR COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO FLAWLESS SPIRITUAL LIVING by The Babylon Bee

*I wrote a brief review of this book for the Baptist Standard. So as to neither plagiarize nor repeat myself, allow me to simply link to that review here.*

9 INNINGS: THE ANATOMY OF A BASEBALL GAME by Daniel Okrent

When you think of a good baseball game, there's a good chance your mind immediately goes to the postseason, when the lights are bright, the air is crisp, and every moment matters. It's a period of intensity, suspense, and and drama. But before that month of adrenaline, every fan first must endure the slow, methodical, and yes, sometimes boring games of midsummer, when the season is no longer new but still nowhere near its finish line. And in truth, those lazy Sunday afternoon games may say more about a player, a team, and the sport itself than the World Series ever does.

That's the premise of 9 Innings, a classic baseball book by writer (and creator of fantasy baseball) Daniel Okrent. Using a random June game between the Milwaukee Brewers and Baltimore Orioles as a framing device, Okrent tells the stories of everyone from the groundskeepers to the players to the managers to the owners, all while narrating the flow of the game. Featuring everyone from future Hall of Famers (Rollie Fingers, Robin Yount, Paul Molitor) to a future commissioner (Bud Selig) to players and executives long since forgotten, Okrent does a deep dive into what makes a team tick on and off the field.

Unfortunately, while I appreciated this book--it's objectively well written and meticulously constructed--I didn't enjoy it as much as I'd assumed I would. I can't quite put my finger on why, but Okrent's writing style never clicked with me, and at times reading this book was, for me, akin to the fifth inning of a blowout--lots of checking my watch and calculating how much longer this might last.

Nevertheless, reading 9 Innings did what I expected it to do: it made me wish for baseball's speedy return. Spring training is underway, which means the real season is close at hand...and with it those slow June day games. They can't get here soon enough.

WONDER BOYS by Michael Chabon

Part farce, part stoner comedy, and part drama (with some notable autobiographical elements thrown in for good measure), Wonder Boys didn't win me over until the last 40 of its 386 pages. But in the nick of time, Michael Chabon landed the plane as only he can.

Wonder Boys is a 'long weekend' story about Grady Tripp, a writer-professor lost in the weeds of his next novel, a 2,000+ page behemoth with no end in sight. Grady is a loser in every sense--his third marriage is falling apart, his mistress just told him she's pregnant, his best friend and editor is losing faith in him, and he's not sure his novel is actually any good. But on the weekend of a writer's convention at his college, friends and events (everything from the shooting of his mistress's dog to a Passover dinner with his wife's family to a break-in of his old car) push him toward some sense of self-realization and even, perhaps, enlightenment.

This book is all over the place, as unfocused as its main character, and that drove me crazy as I was reading. Around page 150 or so, I actually put the book down and muttered aloud, "What is this?" But Chabon is, for my money, the most talented writer of prose out there, so I soldiered on out of respect for the writing. I'm glad I did, because everything really does come together at the end, as unlikely as that might have seemed 100 pages earlier. In fact, the ending winds up being quite touching, a surprise considering the screwball nature of the story.

If you've never read Michael Chabon, I wouldn't start here (start with The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, his Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece and my all-time favorite novel). But with that being said, I am glad I read it, because for a book that seemed for most of its duration to be about nothing at all, it winds up having something to say after all.

SUPERMAN SUNDAY CLASSICS: 1939-1943 by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster

Nowadays, when you say "comics", you mean one of two things: comic books or comic strips. To overgeneralize, comic books are the home of superheroes like the Avengers and comic strips are the home of cartoon animals like Garfield. But for a while, Superman strode both worlds, fighting crime in both the pages of Action Comics and the local newspaper. This book collects the Sunday strips from the first four years of those newspaper strips.

In terms of writing and art, there's not much difference from what I read in October, when I dove into Superman's earliest comic book stories. And that makes sense, since Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were pulling double duty at the time, creating stories for both the monthly book and the Sunday strips. Parts of these stories have not aged well, but for the most part they're fun, retro adventure tales, usually told over the stretch of 8-12 full page comic strips.  With the notable exception of Luthor, Superman does not take on any super villains in these stories, instead battling mob bosses, corrupt landlords, enemy agents, and the like. The strip takes a noticeable turn toward the patriotic in the last 30 pages or so, when the champion of truth, justice, and the American way suddenly starts battling fascists, including a "what if" story in which Superman hauls Hitler and Stalin before the League of Nations to stand trial.

As with the previous Superman Golden Age collection, I found that a little bit went a long way for me with these stories (I read 8 pages every morning), but they were more fun than you might expect. As both an artifact of early comics history and simple entertainment, this collection was worth the time and made for a fun reading experience.

SHOWCASE PRESENTS: SUPERMAN VOL. 1 by Otto Binder, Bill Finger, Wayne Boring, Al Plastino, et al.

Comics aren't for kids anymore. In fact, they haven't been for quite some time--for at least 20 years, Marvel, DC, and other comic book publishers have mostly given up on trying to reach elementary school kids with their books, relying instead on 25-40 year old males to keep them afloat. The sad result is that there aren't many books on the stands that I'd feel comfortable putting in my son's hands by the time he's old enough to ask.

But when that time comes, this is the book I'll hand him first. While Marvel made its mark in the 1960s by trying to appeal to an older audience, the Silver Age DC Universe was still definitively written for children. Fights were bloodless, romance was sexless, and villains were more buffoonish than frightening...and every superhero had a pet (or in Superman's case, basically an entire menagerie: Krypto the Super-Dog, Comet the Super-Horse, Streaky the Supercat, Beppo the Super-Monkey, etc.) It all makes for self-contained stories that are cartoonish, unrealistic...and utterly charming.

Of particular note in this volume of Silver Age stories (presented in black-and-white; the Showcase Presents line was DC's answer to my beloved Marvel Essentials) are "imaginary stories," tales outside the canon of the DCU in which we learn what Superman's life would have been like if Krypton had never exploded, or if he and Lois actually got married, or any number of other unthinkable scenarios. Also notable are the first appearances of Braniac and Bizarro, two villains who continue to plague Superman to this day.

The writing and art in this volume are "house style," meaning it all looks and sounds pretty much the same from issue to issue. Nothing too ambitious is happening in these issues. But don't let that dissuade you from picking it up--these issues won't make you think too hard, but they will make you smile. And when you're picking up a comic book, sometimes that's more important anyway. Especially for kids.

BLACK PANTHER VOL. 1: A NATION UNDER OUR FEET by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Brain Stelfreeze

I wanted to like this. Really, I did. I mean, it seems like a match made in heaven: Black Panther, the first black superhero (not to mention the titular character of the biggest movie in the world) and Ta-Nehisi Coates, the most talented, famous, and influential black writer around (not counting Barack Obama.) This book was seemingly destined for greatness.

I just wish I knew what was going on in it. That's the fundamental problem with this book: it is NOT friendly to readers unaware of Black Panther's recent history. I went in better informed about both T'Challa and Wakanda than the average new reader, and I was utterly lost for the majority of the four issues this volume collects. To his credit, Coates has clearly done his research, but no effort is made to get the reader up to speed...which, since this is the first volume of a new series, seems like a fair thing to expect.

As best I could tell, the story begins with Wakanda in a shakier position than it's been in decades, the result of several recent conflicts and the death of T'Challa's sister Shuri, who had recently reigned as queen in his stead. This volume shows the birth of a series of internal rebellions and how T'Challa begins to deal with them. Or at least, I think that's what's going on.

The art's great, and anyone who recently saw the movie will see that the cinematic vision of Wakanda borrows from these issues. The dialogue is interesting. But ultimately, I spent more time trying to puzzle out what I was reading than enjoying it. I'm told the later volumes are improvements over this one...but I'm not sure I'll be along for the ride.