Scriptures That Bother Me — 2 Kings 5

Posted by Jim Thornber on May 6, 2009
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(Previously posted Oct. ’08)

“Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.” — Mark Twain

The Healing of Namaan

When I read this passage, two things stand out and cause me pause. First, why is an entire chapter in the Old Testament given over to this one character and his leprosy? And two, why am I so familiar with just how Naaman must have felt when he was told to wash in the Jordan River?

Regarding the first question – I haven’t a clue as to why an entire chapter is given over to this story. I’m just sharing my agony over this passage with you, the reader. I don’t claim to have all the answers. Maybe God just thought it was important. If you know, send me an e-mail.

But I am truly bothered by Naaman’s response to Elijah’s directives to go wash in the Jordan. Here is a highly regarded warrior whom the king of Aram knew to be a great man, “because through him the LORD had given victory to Aram” (vs. 1). Aram, by the way, is also known as Syria, whose capital is Damascus. But I digress.

Here’s the picture: Naaman is a great warrior, esteemed by all, adored by the masses and rich enough to own a slave girl imported from Israel. His only problem seemed to be a small case of leprosy, which is a bit more distressing that acute acne by not as bad terminal cancer.

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Scriptures That Bother Me — John 4:10

Posted by Jim Thornber on May 4, 2009
Posted in: Christian Spirituality, Religion, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 6 Comments

“Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.” — Mark Twain

Just Jesus

“If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” – John 4:10

A few years back, a popular Christian tee shirt compared Jesus to a soft drink. It said, “Jesus: He’s the real thing.” It was cute, as far as it goes. Not life changing, but cute.

Then I actually heard a minister compare the life-giving, pure water of Jesus to a can of Coke. He said Jesus was a pure relationship with God, while a Coke was a relationship with man-made additives. One was pure relationship and one was mostly religious. Well, he had my attention.

Water, as opposed to your favorite soft drink, is necessary for life. We must have water in order to live. We drink it and wash with it. Water is a lubricant, dispels heat and sustains life, supports digestion, makes things soft and aids in eliminating waste. All life on this planet needs water to live. Water is indispensable, and the need for water has been the force behind more than one war.

A soft drink, however, with all its fancy ingredients, is necessary for nothing. We cannot bathe in it, use it to brush our teeth or add it to our radiator to displace heat. You can’t water the lawn with it, and you certainly can’t use it wipe down a dirty table or wash your clothes. A soft drink is mostly water with various additives; and none of these additives is necessary for an efficient and effective life.

Here’s the part that bothers me. Continue Reading

You’ve Got Nothing On Me Now, Satan

Posted by Jim Thornber on April 30, 2009
Posted in: Publishing, Religion, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 4 Comments

For four years I was an Assemblies of God minister and a monk with the Brothers and Sisters of Charity. This blog is an excerpt from my yet-to-be-released book about my experiences, taken from the chapter on Confession.

One of the great benefits of confession is the way it removes us from the manipulative hands of the enemy.

When the Pharisees brought the woman caught in adultery before Jesus, she had nothing more to hide (John 8:3-11). Her worst nightmare, exposure in the midst of her sin, was now being played out before the very eyes of those religious leaders who had the power to take her life. She deserved death, for the law said that she should die for the sin of adultery (Lev. 20:10; Deut. 22:22). However, under the watchful eye of Jesus, she found not only pardon, but mercy, grace and forgiveness. Jesus literally saved her from the consequences of her sin. When she was brought to Jesus, the only thing she had left to cling to was a blanket to cover the shame of her sin. Now she found Jesus a new covering, for Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more” (John. 8:11).

If we would all come to the realization that everything that we have done or will do is even now exposed to Jesus – and we don’t even have a thin blanket to cover our shame – we would gladly give ourselves completely over to His loving grace and forgiveness. When we confess our sins to God and to those we’ve offended, we will find ourselves able to repeat the words of Jesus, who said of the Accuser, “he has no hold on me” (John 14:30).

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Scriptures That Bother Me — Psalms 96:1

Posted by Jim Thornber on April 28, 2009
Posted in: Christian Spirituality, Religion. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , . 5 Comments

Singing The Same Old Song

“Sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth.” – Psalms 96:1

You know the Holy Spirit is on your case when you’re zipping along, joyfully reading Scriptures, feeling good about yourself and your relationship with God, when suddenly you come across a verse that smacks you in the head so hard your feet ache. This verse did that to me about two minutes ago.

How, you may ask, can such a sweet, uplifting, joyful and inspiring verse bring you such misery and pain? Easy. It’s been a while since I’ve sang a new song, and I sense God telling me its time to change my tune.

I feel like my prayer life is in the rut of seeking the same things over and over and over. I’m getting so tired of praying the same old song (“Lord, guide me to our next ministry. Help my book find a publisher. Lead me to a job that pays well enough that my wife won’t have to work. Give me a reason to get out of bed in the morning other than going to work to sell plumbing parts….”) that I’ve mostly given up on prayer.

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How a Protestant Monk Confesses

Posted by Jim Thornber on April 25, 2009
Posted in: Christian Spirituality, Religion. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 3 Comments

For four years I was an Assemblies of God minister and a monk with the Brothers and Sisters of Charity. This blog is an excerpt from my yet-to-be-released book about my experiences, taken from the chapter on Confession. Previously posted in Dec., 2008.


It wasn’t really a bad weed eater, as weed eaters go. Built by a well-known and trusted company, this weed eater had served the community well over the years, faithfully trimming grass and enabling us to maintain the beautiful land nestled in the magnificent Ozark Mountains known as the Little Portion Hermitage. However, on this particular morning the weed eater must have gotten up on the wrong side of the garage, for it absolutely refused to start.

Try as I might, I could not get the weed eater to start. Does it have gas? Check. Is the spark plug okay? Check. Well, that’s as far as my small engine talents can take me. So, let’s pull on the rope some more. Once more. One more time. Pull again. Pull. Pull pull pull pull pull pull pull pull. About the time I started to feel the blister come up on my finger from jerking on the rope, I’d had enough. I laid hands upon it (in the name of Jesus, of course) and removed the offending member from my presence.

I didn’t really believe that a long flight out the garage door would help the obstinate weed eater start. But for that brief, wonderful moment, the sight of the obnoxious, obviously UNSAVED weed eater flying helplessly (if unrepentantly) across the driveway and into the shrubs by the common center made me feel better. Walking out into the bright sun to retrieve the varmint, I bought it back into the garage and tried it once again. I was right. It still didn’t start.

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Scriptures That Bother Me — Genesis 1:4

Posted by Jim Thornber on April 23, 2009
Posted in: Christian Spirituality, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

“Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.” — Mark Twain

HOLY SEPARATION

God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness . . . water from water . . . day from night (Gen. 1:4, 6, 14).

Genesis 1:1 tells us that in the beginning, whenever and wherever that was, “God created.” The fact that God created was not an accident. Our being here was not a the result of molecules coming together and then exploding apart in a loud bang to form the universe, wherein God looked up and said, “Hmm, what’s going on down there?” The creation of the universe was an intentional work of God, not a series of fortuitous events that ultimately led to the diverse world that we know today.

As part of His plan for creation, Genesis says God separated like items: light from light, waters from waters, woman from man. And all these works He called “good.” It is good for day and night to be separate, for there to be a sky and an ocean, animals and vegetation, a man and a woman (Ps. 104:19-30).

The rationale behind these separations was to fill the void and formless earth. God expanded His creation, filled in the gaps, left nothing without a place or a purpose. For example, God separated the woman from the man so that Adam would no longer be alone, but be filled and fulfilled, by his uniting with Eve. In the economy of God, separation brings fulfillment, completion, and unity. But with man it is a different story.

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We Couldn’t Exhaust Our Common Jesus

Posted by Jim Thornber on April 20, 2009
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For four years I was an Assemblies of God monk with the Brothers And Sisters of Charity.  The following is from a yet-to-be-released book called Taking Off My Comfortable Clothes, from the chapter called We Couldn’t Exhaust Our Common Jesus (Ecumenism). This was previously posted in October, 2008.

For the majority of the time I was a protestant monk living at the Little Portion, I was also the only non-Catholic, but I knew this would be the case before I moved there. There were many points of disagreement in our traditions and theologies, but on this one item we always agreed: We could not exhaust the topic of our common love for Jesus.

From the beginning, John Michael Talbot’s vision regarding the community involved the inclusion of many different people — celibate and single men and women, families, and non-Catholics. The community describes itself as being a Catholic-based, ecumenical community, and for four years, I was the primary ecumenical expression of the order.

Because of this, I was often the “go to” person when non-Catholic guests arrived. Since the community is located about ten miles from Eureka Springs, AR (a vibrant tourist destination that is the home of the Great Passion Play), and 60 miles southwest of Branson, MO, we would often have visitors who were either fans of John Michael, or curious about our community, or both. If these visitors happened to be non-Catholics, then the call usually went out, “Find Brother Jim.” Besides John Michael, I was the only one at the community who was bi-lingual; I spoke both Protestant and Catholic.

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Scriptures That Bother Me — Hebrews 11:6

Posted by Jim Thornber on April 20, 2009
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“Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.” – Mark Twain

Pleasing God

“Without faith it is impossible to please God.” – Hebrews 11:6

We all know that it takes faith to please God. We cannot say a simple prayer of salvation without some measure of faith taking place. We even have the courage to call ourselves a “Christian” because of that faith in God’s desire to forgive us, and thus begin the life-long process of becoming Christ-like.

But it seems to me — if my own walk with God is any indication of this process — that the moment we begin our walk with God we move immediately from the realm of faith and into the realm of self-justifying good works, while at the same time calling it a walk of faith. As such, we leave our theology of faith in place but move onto an actual lifestyle of pleasing God by those things that we do or accomplish throughout the day, month and year.

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Scriptures That Bother Me — Philippians

Posted by Jim Thornber on April 17, 2009
Posted in: Christian Spirituality, Religion, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 3 Comments

This article was originally posted in Nov. ’08.

“Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.” — Mark Twain

My Problem With Paul

I’m starting to avoid reading the book of Philippians. Well, let me back up.

Have you ever noticed that when people read the Bible, they tend to read it from the perspective of their current situation or circumstances? For instance, if you are sick, then you start to notice all the Scriptures relating to healing. If you are poor, you see the abundance Scriptures, and if you are in prison, you focus on the passages that relate to feeling confined. I’ve felt like a prisoner myself lately, so I’m starting to avoid the book of Philippians. Yes, the whole book.

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Wrestling with God

Posted by Jim Thornber on April 16, 2009
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For four years I was an Assemblies of God monk with the Brothers and Sisters of Charity. This is an excerpt from my yet-to-be-published book Taking Off My Comfortable Clothes. The chapter is called When God Alone Is Enough (Isolation). It was originally posted Nov. 6, 2008.

There were times at the community when I felt so alone I could hardly express it. I would often go to the chapel, find a dark corner to sit in, pull my hood over my head and mutter over and over, “It’s just You and me, Jesus. Just You and me.” I felt so very lonely, isolated, and separated from all that was familiar.

These were also times of questioning God–big, loud, bodacious, tear-filled questions that seemed to bounce off the ceiling of the chapel and slap me in the face. “Are You still with me? Did I miss Your will? Whose idea was this monk’s life, anyway? Does anybody care? Will I always feel so alone and without a friend? Do You hear me?” If you are interested, the answers to those questions were: yes, no, mine (I think), yes, sometimes, and always.

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