Fayette Bible Church

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"Autumn Hospitality & Fellowship at Its Best!"

Fayette Bible Church ladies and guests enjoyed a lovely Saturday evening at Walt and Sharon White's home in honor of the upcoming wedding of Rhonda Wofford's son, Erick, and his bride-to-be, Karyn Yasinski.
Gratitude and thanks go to Sharon White and Marilyn Harrison who graciously prepared the home with a lovely display of autumn beauty. The menu consisted of Chick-fil-A chicken salad croissants, pasta and fruit salads, various jello salads, cheesecake, and brownies which were lovingly prepared by FBC and GCA ladies. After at least one hour of sampling these many delicious dishes, everyone gathered together for the opening of wedding gifts.

"It's About Time"

Today we take accurate time for granted. Im nearly always in the presence of a device with a clock that is accurate to the second. As I write, to my left is my old-time looking atomic clock on my wall that gets its calibration throughout the day from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, located in Fort Collins, Colorado. Im writing on my computer which gets its calibration from a time server located at Apple Computer (time.apple.com). It, too, is always perfect. Curiously, my iPhone get its time from AT&T, and it is always exactly six seconds fast. I find that mildly irritating. If you can be exactly six seconds fast all of the time, why cant you be exactly accurate all of the time? My appointment alarms go off on my iPhone six seconds before they go off on my computer.
Accurate time is something that has evolved over my lifetime. When I was a kid, nobody thought about there actually being a correct time. We were accountable to whatever time the school clock said it wasaccurate or not. School back then was a bit lenient with their expectations of accountability with regard to time. When I joined the Marine Corps, their clocks were no more accurate, but there were serious consequences if you showed up even a minute late according to the squadron clock. Sometimes that clock would show three or four minutes in deviation from accurate time. To be on the safe side, I made sure I was always five minutes early by my watch in order to avoid more trouble than I could handle.
In 1970, while in Iwakuni, Japan, I went to the PX on base and bought a Bulova Accutron watch. They were the first company, as I recall, to market a watch that kept near-accurate time. It had a tuning fork inside. When held up to the ear, you could hear that tuning fork emitting a perfect high-pitch F sharp. I was a little disappointed though when I discovered that it gained about six seconds over a month.
Then in 1977 I saw a quartz crystal LED watch at Service Merchandise in Roanoke, Virginia. Awwwheres what I had been waiting foran absolutely accurate watch. However, after my first month of ownership I discovered that I had lost accuracy with my new acquisition. My new quartz watch lost about 35 seconds a month. Whats up with that! After that, I went through a series of gadget watchesyou knowwatches with calculators, calendars, stop watches, etc. However, none of them rose to the level of accuracy of my Bulova Accutrondespite their quartz-accuracy technology.
The last watch I bought was the Service Merchandise store brand (Regency) with a lifetime warranty. Who knew at the time that they were talking about their lifetime as a companynow defunct. When the watch stopped working the second time, and there was no place to take it to have it repaired, I decided that wearing a wristwatch was not meant to be for me any longer. So, for the last eight years I have not worn a watch at all.
It was kind of refreshing not to have that thing wrapped around my left wrist. I never realized how often I looked to see what time it was until I didnt wear a watch any longer. I glanced over at my empty wrist every few minutes. Wowno wonder my days had passed so slowly when I was a watch wearer! Of course, if I really wanted to know what time it was, I could always pull my phone out of my pocket and look there. I was satisfied.
You may not be such a stickler regarding exact time like I am, but all of us have a sense of about what time it is nearly all of our waking moments. Its just our way of life. Think about how it was in rural America a couple of centuries ago. They got up and went to work in the fields at daybreak. When the sun was up over head, it was noonish and time to eat lunch. As the sun was setting, it must be time to give it up for the day. Exact time back then wasnt even very useful.
Today, nearly everything in society runs on an accurate timetable. Television broadcasts begin at a predetermined time to the second. Time clocks at work are similarly accurate as wellat least for the most part. When we arrange to meet someone, we usually designate an exact time to do so. Today we take exact time for granted.
In scripture, we see increments of time stated in hoursnot minutes or seconds. Thats best seen in the parable Jesus gave regarding the hiring of workers in Matthew 20. The first batch of workers were hired early in the morning. A second group were hired three hours latermeasuring from daybreakor about 9:00 a.m. Another crew is contracted in the sixth hour (noon or so) and another at the ninth hour. Finally, we are told that a final group of day laborers were hired at the eleventh hourabout 5:00 p.m.with just one more hour to work. From that we derive that the average day laborer back then was expected to work a twelve-hour shiftapproximately 6:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m.
In that parable, however, all of the groups were paid one Roman denarion, regardless of when they began their work that day. Of course, those who began at 6:00 a.m. complained that they received the same amount as those that began at 5:00 p.m. Thats not fair! Then Jesus made his point. They were all paid per the agreed-upon wage. Those who began at 6:00 a.m. were happy to work a day for a denarion. It wasnt until they realized that others had worked less for the same wage that they became dissatisfied.
Now, while it does seem fair that the one who works the most should get the greater reward, Jesus makes the point that, when what has been promised is given, what more can one properly expect? His lesson is that people tend to spend too much time comparing their dedication and accomplishments to others rather than focusing on the reward for service promised by the Lord. We actually see this scenario played out in churches every day. Its apparent that whether you are conscious of time to the second or not, many people keep a running time clock going in their heads for comparison purposesalways looking for inequities.
Heres what I know: Some of the most productive Christian workers I know wasted a lot of time before they got saved. Since salvation, however, theyve run the race with fervor. Far be it from me to begrudge their success in Christian ministry because they havent spent enough TIME paying their dues. God bless those folks. With them, its not about time; its about quality of Christian service.
Pastor Wayne Turner of Fayette Bible Church in Fayetteville, Georgia (http://www.fbgc.org) is also the author of Bible Track, an online daily Bible-reading schedule and commentary which may be accessed at http://www.bibletrack.org.