Let’s say God’s in a quirky mood, like when he created the platypus or nudged the Appalachian State football team past Michigan.

Let’s say he decides, for a few hours only, to drastically relax his standards on miracles. For this one morning, the new protocol is boiled down to:

• Requester must believe in God.

• Requester must have honorable motives.

• Request granted.

So at 6 a.m. on this special morning, unannounced, God lets the miracles begin.

At 6:03, the first prayerful soul offers up her daybreak litany of sick and dying friends and acquaintances.

At 6:05, those who are awake feel much better.

Overdue bills

At 6:42, those in that first healed generation begin offering prayers of their own. Mostly they give thanks, but some include requests for this healing power to spread—more healings, a couple of saved marriages for friends or relatives, the payment of overdue bills piled up during a long hospital stay.

At 7:15, one of the couples whose marriage was on the rocks awaken at the same time, not on opposite sides of the bed, but cheek by cheek. Ignoring the morning breath, they share their first kiss in a long time and are late getting the kids up for school.

At 8:07, a clerk at the hospital calls to confirm payment of those bills. The clerk is told of the miracle behind the payment.

At 8:10, the clerk summons her faith and prays for a better-paying job to support her aging parents.

At 8:15, she gets a call from an old friend at a bank about a position as a loan officer.

Between 8:15 and 9, the hospital discharges most of its patients as word spreads from room to room about the potent power of prayer.

Repurcussions

At 9:02, a bank loan officer arrives for work only to be told she has been replaced. No reason given.

At 9:07, two people die in a collision at the crowded exit from the hospital parking lot.

At 9:11, little Johnny prays that he can be one of the popular kids at school, so that everyone will stop making fun of him.

At 9:15, a single mother prays that the man she’s seeing will finally leave his wife so that her children can have the father they need.

At 9:22, the wife, on her way home from belatedly dropping off the kids at school, picks up her cell phone. It’s her husband. “Hey, sweetie,” she purrs, but he answers curtly: “I want out. I don’t love you anymore.”

By 9:30, the financial power of prayer is being broadly tapped. Loans are being forgiven, bank accounts are filling out of thin air and 401(k) portfolios are growing beyond all reason.

At 10:15, the stock markets begin reacting to news of irregularities in the banking industry.

At 10:19, a third-grader on the playground is sobbing miserably, wondering why little Johnny, his only friend, doesn’t want to play with him today.

At 10:42, the former loan officer, distraught and not knowing where to turn, turns her car off a cliff.

By 10:52, there are no more cliffs, for all of the mountains have been moved one at a time into the sea by rookie believers, just checking to see if it would really work.

Cleaning up the mess

At 11 a.m., God does the world a favor. He stops the morning of miracles an hour early.

He cleans up the mess.

He goes back to moving in mysterious ways.

So mysterious that even those who believe firmly that God is at work in the world are seldom certain: Did I just witness a miracle, or was it merely … one of those weird coincidences?

The power is always there if a mountain needs to be moved into the sea, but mostly God keeps a lighter touch on the controls.

Maybe we should pray that he never hands us those controls.

Not even for a single morning.

Doug Mendenhall, author of How Jesus Ended up in the Food Court, serves is a columnist for the Huntsville Times in Huntsville, Ala. His column is distributed by Religion News Service.

We just don’t hear about the Ten Commandments anymore. They carry the essence of the law of our land and guidelines for all of life. I’m embarrassed that our preachers apparently aren’t preaching the Ten Commandments. Lots of morality issues would be settled if they did, don’t you think?

I love the Ten Commandments. They distill many of God’s laws and are unique among the legal codes of the ancient world. As you say, they have had a formative influence on our laws. Yet as wonderful as they are, they shouldn’t be a central focus of Christian proclamation for many reasons.

First, God calls us to a relationship with the living Christ, not a legal code. This relationship comes through the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 3:24-25 that the law was put in charge of us to lead us to Christ, so we could be justified by faith. Now that we have faith in Christ, we’re no longer under the supervision of the law. Our moral and ethical guidance come from Christ’s presence in us through the Holy Spirit.

Love is the centerpiece

Second, Jesus didn’t make the Ten Commandments the centerpiece of his teaching and preaching. Remember the Pharisee who tested Jesus by asking him, “Which is the greatest commandment in the law?” (Matthew 22:34-40) Jesus didn’t quote any of the Ten Commandments. Instead, he quoted Deuteronomy 6:5, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” and Leviticus 19:18, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” He said of these, “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these commandments” (Matthew 22:40).

Jesus meant that if we love God with all our beings, we’ll fulfill his commands to worship him alone, to make no idols, and to keep his Sabbath day. If we love our neighbors as ourselves, we won’t murder them or steal from them, or covet what they have. As the Apostle Paul wrote: “Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law” (Romans 13:10).

Christ's commands

Third, the Ten Commandments have never been central to the church’s proclamation of the gospel. Instead, Christians have focused on teaching believers to obey everything Christ commanded, including the two commandments listed above.

Although the Ten Commandments should not be central to Christian proclamation, they remain important because they give flesh and definition to God’s commands to love. Love is subjective. Laws like the Ten Commandments anchor love in objective commands.

The Ten Commandments should be included in Christian instruction, but learning them won’t solve moral problems in churches and in society. What’s most needed in the church is for Christians to develop their relationships with the living Christ and imitate his attitudes and actions.

Robert Prince, pastor

First Baptist Church, Waynesville, N.C.

Right or Wrong? is sponsored by the T.B. Maston Chair of Christian Ethics at Hardin-Simmons University's Logsdon School of Theology. Send your questions about how to apply your faith to btillman@hsutx.edu.

“Science and faith, reason and faith should never be seen as opposites but as bed-fellows.”
—Tony Blair, former British prime minister and a recent convert to Catholicism (RNS)

“I want to say it again, and again, and again: Islam is not a religion. It is a political system … bent on world domination, not a religion.”
—Pat Robertson, religious broadcaster, speaking on the 700 Club (RNS)

“What will this do for Ronald McDonald’s image? What secret has Ronald been keeping?”
—Dwayne Hastings, vice president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, regarding McDonald’s sponsorship of the Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (BP)

“God.”
—George W. Bush, U.S. president, when asked what he saw when he looked into Pope Benedict’s eyes (RNS)

“Texas Baptists saved the life of my son.” One man shocked me with this statement after I met with students at Truett Seminary in Waco.

He and his wife were missionaries to China. They went to China with one child and soon became pregnant with their second. In China, they were allowed only one child and were told they would have to abort. Of course, that was not an option. Texas Baptists brought them to Texas and provided him with a scholarship to study at Truett. He will graduate in May, and he and his family hope to return to China as missionaries with their 2 1/2-year-old miracle son. Sheila and I met Kati (Kathryn) at Buckner International’s annual donor dinner. She is a beautiful 4-year-old from Guatemala. Kati was born with facial deformities and was abandoned at birth. This little throw-away child was taken to a Buckner home in Guatemala. Baylor Health Care learned of her condition and brought her to Dallas, where she received numerous surgeries. Now this beautiful little girl has been adopted and has a mother, father and siblings. Scott Collins of Buckner said 100,000 children are cared for in Buckner facilities around the world.

During these last few weeks, I have had the opportunity to begin a tour of Texas to meet with our church and institutional leaders. Susan shared about her desperate situation when she was a single mother with two small children, no job and no place to live. She was directed to the BGCT’s ministry in Round Rock, where she and her two sons lived the next 11 months. The staff of Children at Heart Ministries introduced Susan to Christ, taught her how to manage a budget, got her a job, and she and her boys moved to her own apartment.

A few years later, Susan told her boys God was calling her to go back and help mothers who were having problems like she had. Her 6-year-old asked: “Momma, we lived there because you were having problems? I thought it was because it was fun!” Many mothers have been rescued through this ministry.

It has been exciting to visit many of our Texas Baptist universities. Tatenda Tanzeneva, the student body president at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, led a prayer for me after I spoke in chapel. This senior from Zimbabwe prayed the most sincere and eloquent prayer of blessing before his fellow classmates. His prayer represented the obvious fact that students from around the world are finding a place in our universities, where they are receiving an excellent Christ-centered education.

Individual churches perform incredible ministries. Yet no church alone can provide shelter, food and a Christian environment for 100,000 children. No single church can rescue single moms and orphaned children. Not even the largest church can provide college and seminary training for students in every part of Texas, but when we share our resources, prayers and passions through the BGCT, we can be a part of God’s work that is greater than our eyes have seen and our ears have heard. It is a privilege to serve with you in these kingdom opportunities.

Randel Everett is executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board.

Every once in awhile, I stare face-to-face into the reality I have become someone very different than the little boy I used to be.

Of course, I’m still me. Yet the line of continuity between the boy I was and the man I am somehow unraveled along the way. I think it happened out in the yard.

When I was a kid, if you’d given me the option between pulling weeds or getting spanked by Daddy every day for a week, I would’ve bent over and grabbed my ankles.

Back then, Baptists believed in spanking. Unfortunately, I got my share, probably because I was the oldest child. Oh, yeah, and probably because I had ’em coming. (However, I developed a theory that corporal punishment related proportionally to birth order. Maybe parents became more permissive with each new child. Or maybe their arms just wore out.)

Misunderstood

Anyway, I would’ve preferred a paddling to pulling weeds. I remember once, when Mother commissioned me to the back yard to pull weeds, I imagined I’d been unjustly sentenced to “a fate worser’n death.” So, there I crouched, in the middle of a lawn full of dandelions, singing my made-up version of an old-time hymn: “When we do the best we can, and they do not understand/They will understand it better bye and bye.”

Ironically, I was as surprised as a Judean shepherd a couple of weekends ago, when I found myself crouching in the middle of a flower bed on the east side of our garage, pulling weeds like nobody’s business. And having fun.

“This can’t be right,” I thought. “I should feel sorry for myself.”

But I just kept pulling away, happy as the spiders, doodlebugs, earthworms and slugs that shared their little patch of heaven with me.

It is good 

I haven’t figured out exactly why I enjoy pulling weeds. Maybe because I spend nearly all day every day making decisions, and in the yard, all the decisions are pre-made: Keep on weeding, pruning and trimming until nothing is left to weed, prune and trim. Or maybe because progress in the “real world” develops slowly, but in the yard, you can tell exactly what you’ve done for the past three hours. And, to quote the Lord’s response to creation, “It is good.”

The other possibility—and I’d guess this was at least one of Mother and Daddy’s motives for dispatching me to the yard—is that I’ve learned many disciplines of ordinary life are both good and good for you. Like pulling weeds.

This thought occurred to me one morning after a weed-pulling session, as I sat down to read my Bible and pray. When I was a kid, life seemed too short to take time for daily devotions. Now, life seems too long not to take that time.

And on really good mornings, when I am silent before God, I realize the weeding, pruning, trimming hands of my Maker turn my life far more than my hands ever turn my garden.

With all of the pending disasters blamed on global warming blasting their way through the media, I can understand why many might fear the future climate. We are told emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide (CO2), are destroying not only polar bears and petunias, but the planet as a whole. If we don’t “stop global warming,” The End will surely come.

I am a climate scientist. My research and that of many others does not lead me to be afraid for the climate’s future. However, I am fearful for other reasons:

• I fear for my science. The truth is, our climate system is so complex that we cannot predict its state even into next month. Nonetheless, I see high-profile individuals (usually untrained in science) making claims with unwavering confidence about the climate’s trajectory and a looming catastrophe.

I do not see the humility this science demands. In fact, I suspect an anthropologist, isolated from the media, would observe this global-warming fervor as a religion complete with anointed authority figures, sacred documents, creeds, sins requiring absolution, castigation of heretics and even an apocalypse.

But science doesn’t work by arguments-from-authority or depth-of-feeling. Lord Kelvin said, “All science is numbers.” Our scientific discoveries should be the same, whether one is a Baptist, Buddhist or Bahai.

However, if I’ve learned one thing in this business, it is that we scientists are mere mortals, and we succumb to pride as easily as anyone else. Claiming to know exactly how the climate works and what it will do decades from now has as much to do with belief as science.

• I fear for humanity. When people speak about “doing something about global warming,” please listen carefully. What they advocate are “solutions,” which lead to rationing of energy while having no climate impact. A hidden consequence of these “solutions” is to make energy more expensive—a regressive burden disproportionately inflicted upon the poorest among us.

Is this what we should promote?

Is this the message of Christ?

One fact I learned as a missionary in Africa is this: Without energy, life is brutal and short. Denying energy expansion in the developing world, which many advocate, is to condemn them to suffering and poverty.

The simple truth is that whatever the climate does—and our research at the University of Alabama in Huntsville does not support predictions of an impending disaster—the regulations proposed to date and promoted by the green agenda will have no measurable effect. Even a Herculean effort to build 1,000 nuclear power plants in the next 15 years will impact CO2 emissions and the climate by a tiny margin. (By the way, CO2 is not a toxic gas; it is “plant food.” Indeed, fully one-sixth of the world’s food production is due to the extra CO2 we’ve put back into the atmosphere!)

Am I advocating a scorched-earth policy for energy extraction? No. Energy advances are needed and will come as scientists and engineers develop them. We should promote research that delivers energy in new ways. I believe we can do it—just as we de-horsified transportation in the 20th century, I predict we will largely de-carbonize energy in the 21st.

But I believe we should not sacrifice those who need affordable energy now on the altar of impotent solutions to “save the planet.”

• Lastly, I fear for our faith. As a life-long Southern Baptist, though hardly a fundamentalist, I see that we are being sought after by well-funded environmental groups whose agenda is far from that of the mission of Christ.

When these activists lobby our denomination and its leaders, we risk a diversion of our attention and resources away from our commissioned purpose toward one based on an uncertain science whose advocates call for actions which inflict suffering on the “least of these.”

Be aware! Behind that activist agenda is the intent to elevate the creation to a status inconsistent with Scripture. The Christian doctrine of creation is clear: Mankind is the peak of the creation pyramid (Genesis 1) and the center of life (Genesis 2).

Scientifically, we cannot prove the biblical value of human life. This is one of our faith-claims. My fear here is that some of us will fall victim to these tempting notions of “Creation Care” to “Save the Planet,” when in fact they subvert our theology and promote poverty under the veneer of giving evangelicals the comfort of claiming a 21st century sense of sophistication and political-correctness.

Please understand, we should not waste energy and the resources needed to produce this life-enhancing gift of creation. We should not destroy whole environments in its pursuit, as we now see most dramatically in the poorest countries where forest wood is devoured for low-grade fuel. I believe we will solve the energy issue with scientific research—and an optimistic heart—without increasing human suffering.

Amidst this contentious debate, I pray our eyes will never stray from the One who is our ultimate hope (Luke 1:50).

John Christy earned a master’s degree from Golden Gate Seminary and master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Illinois. He is the distinguished professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth Systems Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, studying global climate since 1987. He is an adult Sunday school teacher and sings in the choir at Farley Community Church, a Baptist congregation in Huntsville. He and his wife, Babs, served as Southern Baptist journeyman missionaries in Kenya 35 years ago. His website is www.nsstc.uah.edu/atmos/christy.html.

Is it a bathroom or spiritual metaphor? Call it The Law of Unintended Home Improvements.

Or maybe call it The Difference Between Husbands and Wives.

I’m not sure what you call it, but we’ve got Exhibit A at our casa in Coppell.

Where to start? Where to start? I guess at our “beginning.”

Joanna and I moved about 20 months ago, after we realized our girls were grown and we didn’t have to drive so far to work anymore. So, we relocated just far enough south to cut my commute time by about half but not so far that we needed to change churches. (We’re so “Baptist.” Our lives sit on a three-legged existential stool propped up by home, church and work.)

One of the major factors that attracted us to our house was its location in an older, etablished neighborhood. We live in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, so “older” is a relative term. In our case that means a shade more than 20 years old. And “established” means they didn’t raze the earth and knock down all the trees when they built these homes. So, we’ve got tall, tall trees. At least by local standards.

The only problem with “older” homes is that things start to break down.

The first time we knew we had a problem was when paint started flaking on the baseboard in our bedroom right by the bathroom door. At first, if memory serves me, I pretended not to notice.

Finally, when the board started looking like barn siding, I had to concede that maybe the previous owners didn’t prime the lumber when they painted. Unfortunately, that’s about the time the water stain showed up in the carpet beneath the baseboard.

I come from the Duct Tape Will Fix Everything school of home repair, so I was stumped. First, I re-caulked the shower, but that didn’t work. Then Larry the Plumber suggested caulking behind the baseboard and inside the shower door, but that didn’t work. Larry said the shower drain pan must be cracked.

Since I’m a logical guy, I figured, “Well, we need to get somebody to replace the shower drain pan.”

Since Jo is a brilliant domestic strategist, she figured, “Well, we need to re-do the bathroom!”

She was almost right.

We re-painted the bedroom, too. (After all, if you have to re-paint a three-foot piece of baseboard, you might as well re-paint the whole bloomin’ room.)

So, now we have not only a new shower, but also new countertops, a new bathtub, new sinks, and fresh paint and glaze designed to look—what else?—really old.

Little did I know it at the time, but our bathroom became like the Apostle Paul’s metaphor for becoming a Christian: “… old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”