In The Deep Freeze

The five day forecast for Grande Prairie does not have the mercury rising as high as -20C, all the expected highs are lower than this. We hit -40 this past week once.

A Man Trying To Find Himself

This was the title of a sermon that aired on the local Christian radio station last night. I was hoping he would get the right man, but I was disappointed once again.

It is both disappointing and amusing to me to watch evangelical commentators and preachers trying to deal with the life of the patriarch Jacob. Almost without fail they identify Jacob as the scoundrel and Esau as the hard-done-by honest guy. They identify with Esau when he complains about Jacob.

Now, we are told in Psalm 1 not to walk in the way of the wicked, stand in the way of sinner, or sit in the seat of the scoffer. But it seems to me that we do all these things at once when we prefer Esau to Jacob, who is spoken of in the text as a "perfect" man. Esau is the one out quadding all the time, not looking after his responsibilities, while Jacob is looking after the farm.

Jacob, in the sermon, was a fellow trying to find himself, which seemed to be a code word for finding God. He still has not found himself, and he is almost back to meeting up with Esau again after 20 years with Laban (who is bad, but not as bad as Jacob, of course!)...

I wish these guys would take the Bible more seriously. There is only one man in the Bible who ever "found himself", and that is Philip, who found himself at Azotus after talking to the Ethiopian Eunuch.