Pastor, author Tony Evans – I wrote Tuesday morning that I was in Augusta, GA for the bicentennial meeting of the Georgia Baptist Convention. There had already been a missionary sending service on Sunday evening, a preaching conference Monday afternoon and the first session of convention meetings Monday evening. The Tuesday afternoon session features the convention sermon each year, brought this year by pastor, author, orator and radio/television host Tony Evans from Dallas, Texas. I don’t know the official seating capacity of Warren Baptist Church in Augusta but the attendance Tuesday afternoon exceeded that. I did have a seat in the sanctuary, in a row of chairs put out for the overflow crowd. The room was stuffed and I retreated to the lobby where I found a much more comfortable chair parked in front of a flat screen. A small group of us watched together and listened in to the remote broadcast and each time the crowd in the room broke into applause we could hear that for real. I did step into the back of the sanctuary to take part in the standing ovation at the very end. Anyone can stream individual sessions or the entire 3 day meeting from the GBC website.
Speaking of Augusta – When Teresa and I met at college in 1997, her family was living in Augusta (technically in the suburb of Hepzibah). Her parents moved a few years later and neither of us have back to Augusta in the last 20 years. I drove down the street and past the house where they lived for 15 years. I drove to the church they attended, where we were married, but the entire footprint of the campus changed and the new sanctuary is a few hundred feet from the one we knew. We talked about a downtown hangout called Nacho Mama’s but never actually made it there together. I finally made it Tuesday. All the menu items have clever names. Shown above is a large pulled pork burrito called The Godfather.
What is Hebrews? The authorship of Hebrews is highly debatable. The short answer is the bible doesn’t say. The 13 epistles from Romans to Philemon identify Paul as the author. If he wrote Hebrews, why do so anonymously? The letter is certainly pauline in style and it could have easily been written by a contemporary of Paul or a student that he mentored. The commonly held scholarly belief in modern times pretty much rejects Paul as the writer. Enter Jeopardy. The clue above was not just on Jeopardy the other night; it was the Final Jeopardy round during the multi-episode Tournament of Champions. I wasn’t surprised to see the Church Leaders website weigh in on Thursday. I am a little surprised to see the controversy grow to the point CNN considers it news. Jeopardy Bible clue sparks hellfire debate over New Testament reads the New York Post headline.
I was in the same room with Tony Evans on Tuesday but it’s like we had a chit-chat. I’ve met Josh McDowell and we did shake hands and converse. I’ve sat down with Johnny Hunt and joked about Joel Osteen over Chick-fil-A samiches. All that’s in the past, you gotta keep looking forward. On sunday we were visited by the host and namesake of the Jimmy’s Table podcast Jimmy Humphrey. After church we treated Jimmy to lunch at a local Calhoun restaurant, the Taco House. As I told my congregation, Jimmy puts on his pants one leg at a time just everybody else. But the way he gets into a shirt is disturbing.
High Occupancy Vehicle – The purpose of HOV lanes is to reduce the number of cars on the highway by encouraging carpooling or taking public transportation. Buses and motorcycles are allowed in the HOV lane (as motorcycles takes up much less space than a full size car with just one person inside). After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Brandy Bottone was pulled over in an HOV lane in or near Dallas, TX. Her ticket for traveling solo in the HOV was dismissed on the basis she was eight months pregnant. There is now a bill in the Texas state government that would clarify the law and specify that a woman with child can use the HOV lanes in that state.
This may be the camel that breaks Ticketmaster. I’m sure he meant to say “the straw the breaks the camel’s back at Ticketmaster” but that’s not what my friend Dudley said Friday morning. We were talking of course about the crash at Ticketmaster caused by the deluge of requests overloading their system during the Taylor Swift pre-sale event. The pre-sale is meant for certified fans who are issued authorization codes. Ticketmaster says the system has always worked for them before but the unusually high demand, coupled with fans adding tickets to their cart who did not have the authorization codes at check out and an insane number of bot attacks, led to their servers being presented with over 3 billion requests for action in a short period of time. Some fans received error messages, others lost their cart and had to start over as the system glitched. At least one customer says Ticketmaster took her money – over $500 – but she still has no tickets. Swift is doing 56 shows next year – 3 nights in a row at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta – and Ticketmaster did sell 2 million of the total 3 million seats. But there were so many problems on Tuesday, and now a limited inventory after the pre-sale, so the general sale of tickets was cancelled on Friday when fans expected more tickets to be available. Speaking of things that are broken:
Twitter is still up and running, for now. I said last week that Elon Musk acquired a social media company that was already having problems and immediately made everything worse. After laying off half the workforce he then made what the remaining employees considered unreasonable demands, that they work longer hours at higher intensity. Hundreds have walked out, refusing to sign his contract of demands. Twitter offices were closed on Friday and it’s unclear how many people still work there. If the site experiences problems there may not be enough technical personal to get it back online. Musk cracked “How do you make a small fortune in social media? Start with a large fortune in social media.” How much do you have to hate a company to spend billions of dollars to purchase it only to forcefully drive it into the ground?
I need more cowbell. College football fans watching Georgia play at Mississippi State last week didn’t get much of a contest but were treating to this Will Ferrell look-alike spotted in the stands. UGA Bulldogs play Kentucky this afternoon, a team with a 6 – 4 record so far this season. Remember this guy though? He was right about one thing, they did lose to Tennessee.
You can’t judge a book, or this paper bottle, by its cover.
The Master's Table 