You can join our teaching ministry with video and print resources on Facebook by searching for Bethel Baptist Church, Torrington, Wyoming or by clicking the link below and then liking the page.
“The End”
When I was a young boy my mother read to me every night before bed. Every good story concluded with the words, “The End,” and if it didn’t I added it.
After 15 years, 6 blogs a week, Where Living Begins has reached its end. As we say in Wyoming, “When you’re riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to get off.” It’s time to get off the dead horse. It’s time for “The End” for Where Living Begins.
It’s generally acknowledged that the age of the blog is over. I don’t write for others, but I can count the number of readers on new daily posts on one hand.
Those who still read each day, I thank you for your loyalty and interest. To new subscribers who keep joining, you can dig through old posts in the search box. Everything old will be new to you.
The devotional encouragements, Biblical teachings, glimpses into Christian history, and Sunday hymns will still be here as long as I’m able to maintain the site. Who knows, there might be special updates and additions as time goes by.
My friends, God bless and keep you. “THE END.”
A Beach Bottle
Each time I visit the beach I hope to find a bottle with a message in it. There’s an excitement to the search and a greater thrill to the find. Who wrote the message? Where did it come from? How long did it bounce around on the vast ocean waves? Will this message change my life?
You don’t have to find a bottle on the beach to discover a thrilling message from afar. The Bible is God’s life-giving message sent more than 2,000 years ago. What an exciting find! Search it out and read it eagerly.
I rejoice at Your word as one who finds great treasure (Psalm 119:162).
Guarding Your Mouth
Decades ago I managed a property management and real estate office. One day an angry client kept calling and yelling profanity at me because the agent he wanted to speak to wasn’t in the office.
The co-owner of the business overheard the repeated calls. He was a typical salesman who knew how to make an ugly woman feel like a beauty queen and talk-up a run-down shack like a castle. He said to me, “The next time he calls, tell him your boss doesn’t pay you enough to listen to profanity and that when he’s willing to talk politely you’ll listen. Then hang up the phone.”
The angry client called. I gave him the little speech Sid suggested and then I hung up the phone. I had to repeat this a few times over a few minutes, and then finally the client called, apologized, and politely asked me to have the agent return his call.
Not everyone who calls is friendly, and not everyone in your life is kind. People like to argue, to be right, and pridefully bully their way into places angels fear to trod. They view the man who doesn’t answer back or give-in as ignorant, wrong, or a push-over; but the Bible reminds us:
Whoever guards his mouth and tongue, keeps his soul from troubles (Proverbs 21:23).
A Woman’s Hat
Every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, for that is one and the same as if her head were shaved (1 Corinthians 11:5).
In many parts of America you’ll find Christian sects known as Anabaptists. They split from the Protestant Reformers in Europe during the 1500s over the issue of baptizing babies, insisting water baptism is for believing adults alone.
One of the hallmarks of Anabaptists today, like the Amish (found only in America), is their simplicity of living. Amish forbid cars, musical instruments, computers, phones, sewing machines and photographs. Electric or motorized tools and appliances are rejected.
Men are not allowed to shave their faces or heads, or use zippers. Women cannot cut their hair, wear pants or jewelry, and must keep their heads covered at all times with a plain white cloth. Artistic and colorful patterns are prohibited, as are buttons and Velcro on clothing. They wear the clothes of their Swiss ancestors 500 years ago as signs of separation from the worldly “English”, a term for anyone not Amish.
At the other end of the spectrum are women who wear hats as if they are “crowns”, boasting of wealth or status in the church; the larger the hat, the more prominent the woman. With time, these hats have become so large that a slight breeze might carry the woman away like a balloon in the wind.
Head coverings in both groups became an outward show of one being different.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians about women wearing head coverings as they publicly ministered by prayer and prophecy in the church on Sunday. The Law of Moses says nothing of head coverings for women, but we know it was a cultural practice in Corinth. Greek custom was for married women leaving home to wear a “tegidion” to hide the entire head except for the eyes, like Muslim women under Sharia Law today. It showed a woman was married; while only prostitutes and virgin girls went without the tegidion.
The Corinthians were guilty of making culture a spiritual standard for believers. They ignored an inward devotion to God while suing one another, speaking in ecstatic languages, getting drunk and engaging in sexual immorality as expressions of worship.
… let women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and moderation … which is proper for women professing godliness with good works (1 Timothy 2:9, 10).
Where Living Begins 
You must be logged in to post a comment.