Mr. Solomon

This is a tribute to one of my family's all-time favorite people: Bill Solomon. Mr. Solomon is 82, and he has friendships with every member of my family -- and with people in every age group in our church, from the oldest to the youngest.

For as long as I can remember, from way back when my own children were attending Vacation Bible School, Bill Solomon was serving the children there in some capacity. I remember him best as wise King Solomon, sitting with the children and discussing their questions about salvation and sharing the Gospel with them. Children run to hug him when they see him. This summer, after telling the Bible story for the day, he was sitting with one of my favorite strong-willed little people at lunchtime. This little 5-year-old was refusing to eat his ziti. Bill grinned at him and said, "Just give it a try." The little boy eyed Bill, took a bite, then ate the whole plateful -- and asked for seconds.

But that is not Bill's only side. I have also watched him speak firmly but kindly to a young man in his 20s who was not being responsible. The young man did try to follow much of Bill's wise advice.

Bill Solomon put my husband on a Scripture memory program, giving him verses to memorize. He would seek out John each week and make him recite whatever Psalm he had given him (in the rich King James version.) John can only do those verses now if he imagines in his mind Bill's booming Southern accent.

Mr. Solomon was kind enough to come to a debate tournament that my son was in and helped out by judging the contestants. He gave John Jr. tips and encouraged him with confident words. He became so interested in the entire event and participated fully.

Later, he agreed to be interviewed by Leah for a school project and gave her such amazing material about his years in the Merchant Marine during World War II that she got a 100 percent on her paper -- from Mr. Etter! Mr. Solomon currently is coaching her on a dramatic presentation of Psalm 23, in the King James, of course.

Bill Solomon inspires me every time I see him. He invests in the people around him and glorifies God by joyfully serving everyone he meets. We thank God for you, Bill!

The Opposite of A Wimpy Woman...

From John Piper's conference on "The Ultimate Meaning of True Womanhood":

My assumption is that wimpy theology makes wimpy women. And I don’t like wimpy women. ... The opposite of a wimpy woman is not a brash, pushy, loud, controlling, sassy, uppity, arrogant Amazon. The opposite of a wimpy woman is 14-year-old Marie Durant, a French Christian in the 17th century who was arrested for being a Protestant and told she could be released if she said one phrase: “I abjure.” Instead, she wrote on the wall of her cell, “Resist,” and stayed there 38 years until she died, doing just that (Karl Olsson, Passion, [New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1963], 116-117)...

The opposite of a wimpy woman is Joni Eareckson Tada who has spent the last 41 years in a wheel chair, and prays, “Oh, thank you, thank you for this wheelchair! By tasting hell in this life, I’ve been driven to think seriously about what faces me in the next. This paralysis is my greatest mercy.” (Christianity Today, January, 2004, 50).

Wimpy theology makes wimpy women. ... Wimpy theology simply does not give a woman a God that is big enough, strong enough, wise enough, and good enough to handle the realities of life in a way that magnifies the infinite worth of Jesus Christ. Wimpy theology is plagued by woman-centeredness and man-centeredness. Wimpy theology doesn’t have the granite foundation of God’s sovereignty or the solid steel structure of a great God-centered purpose for all things.

So I turn to my main point, the ultimate meaning of true womanhood, and start by stating this great God-centered purpose of all things: God’s ultimate purpose for the universe and for all of history and for your life is to display the glory of Christ in its highest expression, namely, in his dying to make a rebellious people his everlasting and supremely happy bride. ...

Now where does this take us in regard to the ultimate meaning of true womanhood? It does not take us to wimpy theology or wimpy women. It is not wimpy to say that God created the universe and governs all things to magnify His own grace in the death of His Son for the salvation of His bride. That’s not wimpy. And it doesn’t lead to wimpy womanhood.

But it does lead to womanhood. True womanhood. In fact, it leads to the mind-boggling truth that womanhood and manhood — masculinity and femininity — belong at the center of God’s ultimate purpose. Womanhood and manhood were not an afterthought or a peripheral thought in God’s plan. God designed them precisely so that they would serve to display the glory of his Son dying to have his happy, admiring bride.


Genesis 1:27 says, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking God created us this way, and then later when Christ came to do his saving work, God looked around and said, “Well, that’s a good analogy, man and woman. I’ll describe my Son’s salvation with that. I’ll say it’s like a husband dying to save his bride.”

It didn’t happen like that. God did not look around and find manhood and womanhood to be a helpful comparison to his Son’s relation to the church. He created us as male and female precisely so that we could display the glory of his Son. Our sexuality is designed for the glory of the Son of God — especially the glory of His dying to have His admiring bride.

In Ephesians 5:31, Paul quotes Genesis 2:24, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” And then he adds this, “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” In other words, from the beginning, manhood and womanhood were designed to display the glory of Christ in his relationship to the church, His bride.

Princess Leah

This is the dress that Leah made under the kind tutelage of Eva. Long ago, when Leah was maybe 7, I took her in for her home school evaluation. The teacher was enchanted with her and showed me a wall hanging that she said reminded her of my Leah. It read: "You ask me if I'm a princess... I guess that's what you call it on this planet." God has given my daughter a lively imagination and an exuberance for life, so much so that sometimes we all wonder where she lives most of the time as she floats around the house, singing her soprano, operatic airs. I pray that her informed imagination will help her live with the hope of heaven and the promises of her Lord vivid in her mind, more real to her than anything else.

Generous Beggars

Today I heard this passage from John Piper's sermon on Romans 1:8-15 about how the grace of God makes us debtors to each other. I am so grateful for God's way of knitting his people together, by giving us gifts -- and shortcomings -- so that we need our brothers and sisters and they need us. This is a reminder to me that though I am a debtor to God, I detract from His name by trying to "pay back" the debt with my service. Trying to "pay back" actually nullifies Grace. To glorify and magnify His name, to show appreciation for the Grace He has extended, means becoming a debtor to everyone. When we serve others -- whoever comes along! -- with the whatever gifts He has chosen to give, always saying, "Look, look, what I have -- here, take some -- He gave it to me!" His Gospel is displayed and His grace at giving gifts to beggars is showcased.


Here is the sermon excerpt:
Peter put it like this in 1 Peter 4:10, "As each one has received a gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." The grace of God comes to the church in manifold forms and ways - as many forms as there are people. And the use of that grace to bring about the obedience of faith is what spiritual gifts are.

So it isn't surprising that at the very beginning of this greatest of all letters - this great theological masterpiece - Paul would call us to think and pray about spiritual gifts and how all of us are debtors to the wise and to the foolish because of God's grace, not just outside the church toward unbelievers, but inside the church to each other. "Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another" (Romans 13 :8).

So here is the sum of the matter: grace came to us absolutely free and unconditional from God when he called us to himself and loved us as his own (1:6-7). This grace makes us debtors to everyone who, like us, needs grace, because not to share the grace we received would imply that we qualified for it and they don't; and that would nullify grace. And what we share is the gospel of this great free grace. This is how we pay our debt to others: freely we received, freely we give. And one of the ways we share the good news of God's grace is through spiritual gifts. O, how important is the body life of the church in small groups where people understand that every member is a steward of grace to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of the Name.