The Epistle to the Romans is the mid-winter Bible study book for Southern Baptists. It could possibly be the best Bible study pastors will ever do for their people.

I want to make our readers aware of a couple of things here, particularly for those who will be studying this incredible book or even teaching it.

1. For many years, I have prepared a series of cartoons to accompany the annual Bible study book. I’m working on the ones for Romans right now, and hope to have them ready to post on our website within a week. I’ll be visiting with my Mom in North Alabama Friday-Tuesday and plan to take along my study/drawing materials and see if I can put together 20 or more cartoons. Then, we’ll send them to Marty in North Carolina and as he can, he’ll enlist the help of 10-year-old Darilyn and post them on the blog for your use.

My old friend Dr. John “Bud” Traylor, now living in Baton Rouge and teaching “Romans” everywhere it seems, has already been after me to get these cartoons done!

2. Having pastored for over four decades and having studied/taught “Romans” through the years, I have some insights to share on the epistle which should be of help to anyone planning to teach it. So, we’ll be posting “Joe’s notes on Romans” alongside the cartoons.

3. If you plan to teach Romans sometime this winter, whether in a three or four session setting or to preach a series of sermons through it, I have one huge suggestion to make. Right now, while your “pupils” still have time to prepare, get them to reading through Romans. And while you’re at it, you need to do it yourself.

Somewhere I read that the great Bible teaching pastor G. Campbell Morgan said he never began to teach a book of the Bible until he had read it through forty-two times. I’m fairly sure that was the number he mentioned.

I have a suggestion on how to read through Romans: do it at one sitting. Don’t stop to get out and see the sights or walk around in the neighborhood, just keep reading. At this point, don’t get hung up on verses you find difficult or the parts you find yourself savoring. Just read the entire book.

There! That wasn’t so bad, was it. Now that you’ve shown yourself you can read all 16 chapters at one setting without straining your brain, do it again within two or three days.

And then, after at least two full readings at a time, now go back and read it slowly. You might want to take a segment at the time. What segment?

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Francis and Dorothy Green lived in Metairie for all their married lives, the last 39 years. In the early 90s, someone recommended they attend the First Baptist Church of Kenner, and that’s how I became their pastor. They were a wonderful and faithful couple and a joy to have as friends. Today we held her funeral in McComb, Mississippi.

I used to ask Dot, “Do you ever think of moving to Vicksburg, to be closer to your daughter Debbie?” Her only child. “Oh no,” she would say. “This is my home.” Then Katrina hit. They sold their flooded house in Metairie and bought another in Vicksburg and joined the First Baptist Church there. Today, their pastor, Dr. Matt Buckles, and I shared the honors at her service.

Dot was a painter. The first time she mentioned this to me, I thought, “Oh yeah. Sure you are.” The way people are who take a 6 weeks class at a community college, then try to sell their amateurish doings for big money at an art sale. Then I saw her work, and believe me, she was an artist. In fact, she once served as president of the New Orleans Art Guild and belonged to several other guilds.

One day she said to me, “Take your pick of all my paintings.” I was like a kid in a candy store. The one I chose she had painted in June of 2002 and titled “Misty Bayou.” It has hung above our bed ever since. Monday, I took it down and carried it to our office. Freddie and Ninfa removed it from the frame and laid it across the color copier and made a reduced copy of the picture, then ran off a number of copies. I carried it with me to McComb and gave to daughter Debbie to share with their family and friends. Margaret had given me notice that I was not to carry the original; she was afraid someone would try to talk me out of it. “You’re such a softie, if someone asked for it, you’d give it away.”

I was pleased to meet Dot’s sister Kathryn. I said, “I have told a story about you for years. Now, I want it from your mouth so I can get it right.” Dot had told me the funny story, and I had told and retold it so many times, the details were hazy.

Here’s the story. Waylon Bailey–lover of great sermon illustrations–take note. This one is for you.

Kathryn said, “I was talking to my family about smoking. I said, ‘I hope none of you will ever take up that filthy habit.’ Megan, my 11-year-old granddaughter, moved over and put her arm around my neck and said, ‘Grandma, that’s one thing you’ll never have to worry about with me. No cigarette will ever touch these lips.'”

“Megan was quiet a moment, then she said in all seriousness, ‘Unless I’m drunk.'”

True story. I told it at the funeral, and added, “Dot loved a good story. And she got a special joy out of seeing people enjoy the stories she told.”

That’s why I told the other story in her service.

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From my earliest memory, I have known of and loved the Lord Jesus Christ. At the age of 11, I became one of His disciples. Ten years later, He decided I would serve Him in the ministry and called me out. As I write, I am 67 years old. You can do the math.

Through these years of reading Scripture, of praying, studying, obeying, trying to grow and striving to honor Jesus by serving His people, I have learned some things about the ways of the Lord. Few of these insights came in advance, but only after the events, when I looked back and gave thought to what the Holy Spirit had done, to how He had led and taught me.

Jesus promised His people that the Holy Spirit would be our Teacher. “He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” (John 14:26) “He will guide you into all truth…He will take of mine and will disclose it to you.” (John 16:13-14)

The best I can figure, there are 984 ways the Holy Spirit uses to teach any of us. So far, looking back over all these years of serving the Lord, here are the top ten ways the Holy Spirit has taught me.

1. The Holy Spirit teaches us in our failures.

As a college student, I struggled in my attempts to witness for Christ. Before attempting to share with friends or strangers, I literally sweat bullets, the inner agony was so horrific. Then, after three or four years of this–by now I was a student in seminary–I picked up a booklet in a Christian bookstore that might as well have had my name on it: “Here’s How to Win Souls.” A Texas minister had put in print and even in photographs the method he used to present the gospel. I bought the booklet, studied it, learned it, and went across town and led someone to Christ using the principles Gene Edwards and the Holy Spirit had cooperated to send my way.

2. The Holy Spirit teaches us in our everyday experiences.

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My Atlanta friend Jim Graham has a granddaughter–her first name is Graham; wonder why–who is so bright at the age of 9, she could qualify to be a McKeever! The ultimate accolade. Anyway….

This week, Jim told me something Graham did when she was 3 years old. “Darlene and I had gone overboard materialistically,” he said, “and bought her a ton of Christmas presents. On Christmas morning, she was opening her gifts. After unwrapping the third one, she looked at me and said, ‘That’s enough. Give the others to Baby Jesus.'”

Out of the mouths of babes.

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The clipping that dropped from my files is undated and evidently came from the Memphis Commercial-Appeal. The thrust of the article was that the relatives of a victim killed in a bank holdup are suing the bank for failure to provide security. But that’s not what caught my attention.

The four robbers who invaded Peoples Bank that day, taking more than $18,000 and the life of 79-year-old bank customer Willie Pearl Carter, did something truly bizarre. According to the shooter–he’s identified as Ramon Laroi Shorter and a minister’s son, now serving a long sentence in the penitentiary–they wore ski masks and carried .40-caliber Glock pistols. And they prayed.

Just before they entered the bank, the little group of bandits bowed their heads and prayed for success in their venture. Shorter says, “I know it’s kind of awful to say we prayed before we do something illegal, but after we prayed, that’s when we went in and did the job.”

The bank bandits were not the first and won’t be the last to seek the approval of God and the blessings of Heaven upon their wrong doings.

The wife who left her minister husband was certain she was in the will of God, and prayed for the Lord’s blessings upon her new life with another woman’s husband. She was so enthralled with her new circumstances, it just “had” to be the will of God.

The deacon who was embezzling money from the church offerings, often stood at the pulpit in the worship service and called down God’s blessings upon both the gift and the giver.

I have no doubt whatsoever that there are abortionist doctors who bow their heads and pray for success in their procedures.

The evidence just keeps accummulating proving that man is lost.

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On Christmas Day, 1939, Britain’s King George VI, the father of Elizabeth II, decided to do something he detested and speak publicly on the radio. He had a speech defect known as a stammer, but determined he would revive a custom his late father had started and bring an annual message to the British people. This being the first Christmas of the war with Germany, he rightly thought they could use the encouragement.

While the king and his staff were working on his broadcast message, someone sent a clipping from the Times of London to Buckingham Palace. The little article contained a prayer of sorts that had been found on a postcard in the desk of a deceased Bristol doctor. That man’s daughter had used it on greeting cards, one of which was received by a Mrs. J. C. M. Allen of Clifton, who had kept it. Realizing the words were appropriate for her country at the outbreak of the war, she passed the postcard on to the newspaper.

Just after 3 pm on Christmas Day, King George began with these words to his people: “A new year is at hand. We cannot tell what it will bring. If it brings peace, how thankful we shall all be. If it brings us continued struggle we shall remain undaunted. In the meantime I feel that we may all find a message of encouragement in the lines which, in my closing words, I would like to say to you.”

Then, he delivered the lines which had come their circuitous route, from the doctor’s office to his daughter, to Mrs. Allen who sent it to the Times, and thence to the palace. Now, those words were being given to the world.

“I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year, ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’ And he replied, ‘Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way.'”

In his book “1940,” Laurence Thompson tells what happened next.

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1) Wednesday, I stood in line.

The line at Honeybaked Ham in Metairie stretched back and forth inside the store and half a block outside along the sidewalk. The line at the post office in Harahan was only 20 deep, but only two windows were open and each customer seemed to be doing their entire month’s mailing. The line at the bank was 20 deep. The line at Piccadilly Cafeteria at 3 o’clock, when everyone thought it would be cleared out, was lengthy.

The ‘rush and crush’ of the Christmas season is upon us, I suppose. Take a number.

2) The political season now shifts into high gear.

We have this celebrity here in New Orleans. In a city filled with characters, this guy is in a class by himself. I’ll not name him for reasons in 3) below, but if I did, many readers would recognize him.

He’s, let’s say, 60 years old and looks 30, thanks to the wonders of cosmetic surgery. In fact, it’s not exaggerating to say he is gorgeous. Broad shoulders, a Hollywood smile, jet black flowing locks, and apparently charm enough to make all the ladies line up and swoon. Several women have had a go with him. He throws weddings to make the queen of a small country envious, renting museums of art or a cathedral and endowing the word ‘lavish’ with new meaning. And when he and his current wife decide to go their separate ways, he sends her off with large alimony checks, although sometimes only because the judge orders it.

Everything the man does is outrageous. Now, got that?

Sitting across the table from a friend one day this week, I don’t know how the celebrity’s name came up. He said something that shocked me. “Did you know he has implants in his shoulders and biceps? To make himself look more impressive.” I did not know and was stunned that any human on the planet could be so vain as to pull such a stunt.

My friend said, “I’ve stood close to him and you are knocked over by those broad shoulders. I mean, he is something!”

The naive country boy in me is still trying to absorb this. Why would anyone do this? Why would anyone want this? Why would a medical doctor use his/her skills for such foolishness? What is the point? Why go to so much trouble to look good when there’s nothing but silicon behind it? Who does it impress and why would he want to impress such shallow people?

And then I read Jim Graham’s column on the current political situation as candidates for the two parties vie for their party’s 2008 presidential nomination. See if you don’t agree it all ties in together….

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I love the tale that comes out of Benjamin Franklin’s childhood. He noticed a daily routine that went on in their household. His mother would take meat from a barrel where it had been salted and stored, would cut off enough for that day, slice it, cook it and serve it to the family. Everyone would gather around the table, bow their heads, and Ben’s father would offer thanks to the Lord.

“Father,” the young future genius said, “I have a suggestion. Instead of giving thanks for the little portion of the meat we consume each day, why not give God thanks for the entire barrel of meat at one time?”

I heard that story from Dr. Wayne Dehoney of Louisville a generation ago. It came to mind this week as news arrived of his homegoing, only a few weeks after his beloved wife had died.

Dr. Dehoney told the story and added, “Isn’t this just like us. We want to cram all our thanksgiving into one day a year, when God would have us to be grateful every day.”

We generally think of giving thanks as a duty to other people who have served us or helped us in some way. It is that, but so much more.

Giving thanks is something I do for myself.

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