Cindy Koepp's Blog, page 6

Matthew 13 and the 7 Letters, Part 3

“How do the Kingdom parables (Matthew 13) relate to the epistles from Christ to the Churches?”

Parable: The Mustard Seed

Church: Pergamos

A mustard seed grows into a huge tree that the birds can make homes in.

At the outset, it sounds like this one is saying that the Kingdom of God grows enormously large and people find safety there, but that’s not the message at all.

  Remember the birds from the first parable?  They’re the ministers of Satan here, too.  A mustard plant is this little yard-high shrubby thing, not a tree.  So this Church grows unnaturally large (Remember: narrow is the path and few are those who take it…), and corruption in the form of Satan’s ministers comes to take roost in the church.  That’s exactly what happened to the Church Married to the World.

The “Sympathy” Trap

Recently, a well-meaning (I assume. Trying to give him the benefit of doubt) person made a decision for me. He says he did it out of concern for my “condition.” The result was a “choice.” I could either step down from an activity I was doing and return to a lesser activity or I could continue in the activity “but with higher expectations.” The “choice” was mine to make, but the conversation made clear which option was correct.

Please note that at no time was an offer made to find out why I was physically unsteadier doing that activity. No effort was expended to teach, train, or develop the skill (“aggressive enthusiasm”) I was missing.

“For my own good,” I was dismissed from the activity.

Not to worry. I’ll land just fine.

Truly, though, when you’re dealing with people, don’t make their decisions unless they are incapable of doing so. If you see them struggling with something or not performing at the level they should, find out what’s going on. Ask what help is needed, if any.

Matthew 13 and the 7 Letters, Part 2

“How do the Kingdom parables (Matthew 13) relate to the epistles from Christ to the Churches?”

Parable: The Tares and the Wheat

Church: Smyrna

A sower plants a bunch of wheat, but an enemy (Satan) comes along and plants tares, which are an annoying weed.  The angels can’t sort it out until the end.

In other words, there is sin in the world, and there are people who do Satan’s work of making life really rough for the believers.  The Persecuted Church had it really rough

Conclusion Jumping

When learning to get along with someone else, we need to avoid two very common pastimes: conclusion-jumping and keyword-listening.

For example, I’m a white, conservative, Christian (Southern Baptist, at the moment), 40-something, Texan female. This does not mean I hate homosexuals, despise the poor, whack people upside the head with my Bible, try to drag people to a baptistery, go hunting, or own a horse. In fact, none of those things are true, but different people have jumped to each of those conclusions.

Listening for keywords and jumping to the conclusions are often done to save time in our busy day. Arriving at the conclusion that I must be a deadly shot with a pistol because I live in Texas spares the listener the time it would take to find out if I actually own one. The problem comes when misconceptions develop.

The only real barrier to truth is the assumption we already have it. If we think we already know what we need to know about someone, we’re not very likely to pay attention to what really is true. Instead of assuming something is true, take the time to get to know the person. You might be surprised.

Matthew 13 and the 7 Letters, Part 1

“How do the Kingdom parables (Matthew 13) relate to the epistles from Christ to the Churches?  “

Parable: The Sower and the Four Soils

Church: Ephesus

A sower scatters seed.  Some takes no root, and birds eat it.  Some takes root in shallow soil and doesn’t make it.  Some takes root but gets choked out by weeds.  Some takes root and bears fruit.

The sower is God or the Church working on God’s behalf.  The seed is the Gospel message.  Notice who takes the seeds that don’t take root at all.  The birds are identified as Satan’s ministers.  That’ll be important later.  The shallow roots are people who are ecstatic about Jesus then lose heart when the going gets rough.  The ones that get choked out with weeds are the people that get distracted by the world.

The Apostolic Church scattered the word far and wide.  Sometimes it took root and did well.  Sometimes, it didn’t.  Sometimes it seems to have done well then floundered.

Like Herding the Wind (A Book Review)

A review for Like Herding the Wind. Find out what Michael Beyer has to say about the characters and plot of the story.

Catch a Falling Star

This is a review I did on Goodreads of a book by an Indie author I met through PDMI Publishing.  It is the first book of hers that I have read, but I couldn’t help but try to promote it.  So here is what I wrote on Goodreads (hoping that I don’t make her beautiful story into an instant worst-seller);

Good science fiction is usually based on an engaging premise that makes you think about it long after the story is finished. Cindy Koepp’s book is like that. The Eshuvani race of aliens crash land their generation ship on the planet Earth in 1612, in the region of Saxony in the Holy Roman Empire. They encounter the human race with weapons drawn. But a brave and dedicated human cleric defuses the situation and convinces two peoples to learn about each other peacefully. The Eshuvani are converted to Christianity and with…

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The Loudest Actions

My 5th novel, The Loudest Actions, released today!

This is the sequel to Remnant in the Stars.

First contact missions are hard enough, but they get even tougher when the negotiator has an ego the size of a gas giant.

Burke Zacharias, a first contact researcher, is chosen to spearhead humanity’s first official contact with Montans, an insect race that has already had a run-in with less friendly humans. Although his words and overtures toward the Montans are cordial enough, the Montans are put off by how he treats the crew of the scout ship that brought him to the world.

With other, less friendly forces trying to establish a foothold on the world, the negotiation must succeed in spite of Burke, or the Montans could be facing extinction.

The Loudest Actions has been published by Under the Moon.

Microaggressions

Last week, I posted about how politically correct language is not synonymous with treating people with respect. That was not meant to imply that we can ignore the impact of our words.

I’ve posted before about microaggressions on my educator blog. Go check it out!

 

 

The Only Psalm

Which Psalm is the ‘Only’ Psalm?

 

Psalm 62 is known as the Only Psalm.  Yes, I know there are 149 others, but Psalm 62 contains the word “only” several times, and so scholars call it the “Only Psalm.”  If you look it up in English, you won’t see that many occurrences of “only,” but some of the words translated “truly” or “surely” are the same word for “only” in the original Hebrew text.

Politically Correct?

Recently, I saw a meme with a quote I’ve seen attributed to several people. This particular one was tagged with Neil Gaiman’s name. No idea if he actually said the words or not.

The meme suggested that “political correctness” was just another name for “treating all people with respect.” I would have to disagree with that. While the PC movement might have started as a brilliant idea to treat all people with more respect, these days, it usually doesn’t have that result.

Some personal examples:

Someone who loudly butted into a conversation I was having, insisted I couldn’t call myself “handicapped” because that was mean. I had to call myself by the more “respectful” term “handicapable.” Really? *gag*  This same person shoved her way past me one morning because I was too slow juggling cane, ID badge, lunch bag, and door. Did she offer to help me with the door? Nope. Offer to carry something? Nope. She blew past me and just about knocked me on my can. I guess I wasn’t “handicapable” enough for her.

A university that prided itself on diversity required aspiring teachers to take a class that included serious time on the whole idea of PC “people first” language. The instructor of that class corrected students who messed up until we all got it right. The year after I took that class, I had a fight on my hands. The university blocked my efforts to go into student teaching because my hands shake. They wanted “a letter from a neurologist” stating I would never have a seizure when in charge of a class. My neurologist laughed and said, “I can’t say that about neurologically normal people.” Sorting out that mess so I could finish my student teaching and graduate took a good chunk of a semester. Oh, yeah, they called me a “person who has seizures,” but they treated me like I had some fatal disease that would infect my students. So much for diversity and putting people first.

Some other examples:

An Indian gentleman visited a class I was teaching. He brought along a slide show to clear up some misconceptions about what living on a reservation was like. One slide showed a baseball game with teams in uniforms. The back of the jersey for one team said “Indians” and had a logo. He included that one to prove that the term “Indian” was not an insult. In fact, he said many Indians find the more PC “Native American” to be a useless and sometimes insulting title. Why? If you were born in the United States, you are a native American.

The store where I work right now serves a significant population of deaf people.  Yes, I said deaf people, not “hearing impaired.” Why? I was told by one of them that the PC term “hearing impaired” is insulting. It implies that something is defective with the deaf person, and many of them don’t see themselves as defective. Different, yes, but not defective. Likewise “blind” and “visually impaired.”

When I was teaching (in Texas), there was the inevitable registration paperwork that parents had to fill out at the beginning of the year. These invariably included demographic information about ethnicity and race. One of my coworkers got an interesting one back one year. The parent had crossed out “African-American” and wrote “Black” and marked that box. When my coworker called for clarification, she was told that “We’ve never been to Africa, and I’m from Canada.” Hmmm… Sounds like “African-American” is not more inclusive or necessarily more respectful after all.

Does this mean we should forgo all attempts to call people respectful terms and treat them kindly and politely? No, of course not, but treating people with respect goes beyond making sure we use formulaic terminology.