Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Best of J. Ellsworth Kalas: Telling the Greatest Story Ever Told Like It's Never Been Told Before
    The Best of J. Ellsworth Kalas: Telling the Greatest Story Ever Told Like It's Never Been Told Before
    The Best of J. Ellsworth Kalas: Telling the Greatest Story Ever Told Like It's Never Been Told Before
    Ebook187 pages3 hours

    The Best of J. Ellsworth Kalas: Telling the Greatest Story Ever Told Like It's Never Been Told Before

    By Dr. J. Ellsworth Kalas

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Take the best preacher you’ve ever heard; add in the teacher who first opened your eyes to the excitement and meaning of your favorite subject in school; combine these with that member of the family to whom you could always turn for the best advice; stir them all together, and you’ll get a flavor of the writing of Ellsworth Kalas. And now the very best thoughts and reflections of this wise teacher and guide are available together in one volume.  

    Across his career Ellsworth Kalas has worn many hats: pastor, professor, seminary president. Through all of them, however, he has remained first and foremost an interpreter of God’s Word. His most potent skill is to open up new insights and meanings in even the most familiar biblical stories. Gathered here are some Kalas’s most humorous, touching, and enlightening writings, drawn from his own experience of finding God in Scripture.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAbingdon Press
    Release dateMar 1, 2012
    ISBN9781426748493
    The Best of J. Ellsworth Kalas: Telling the Greatest Story Ever Told Like It's Never Been Told Before
    Author

    Dr. J. Ellsworth Kalas

    J. Ellsworth Kalas (1923-2015) was the author of over 35 books, including the popular Back Side series, A Faith of Her Own: Women of the Old Testament, Strong Was Her Faith: Women of the New Testament, I Bought a House on Gratitude Street, and the Christian Believer study, and was a presenter on DISCIPLE videos. He was part of the faculty of Asbury Theological Seminary since 1993, formerly serving as president and then as senior professor of homiletics. He was a United Methodist pastor for 38 years and also served five years in evangelism with the World Methodist Council.

    Read more from Dr. J. Ellsworth Kalas

    Related to The Best of J. Ellsworth Kalas

    Related ebooks

    Christianity For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Christmas Is About Receiving

      Dec 19, 2017

      A Christian Science perspective: The ever-present Christ, God’s message of infinite love for all, comes to each one of us.

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Good With The Bad

      Jan 8, 2021

      The Good With The Bad
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Perfect Prayer

      May 18, 2020

      The Perfect Prayer
      1 min read

    • Article

      Sewing for Hope

      Dec 28, 2020

      Sewing for Hope
      3 min read

    • Article

      Bible Fun

      Sep 29, 2023

      Bible Fun
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Fury of a Mother, and the Story of Her Murdered Son

      Feb 28, 2017

      The Victim’s Song, published 32 years ago by the literary critic and SUNY-Cortland English professor Alice R. Kaminsky, is quite unlike most memoirs by parents of murdered children. As a group—tiny, because it’s a club no one would willingly join—suc

      5 min read

    • Article

      A Note From The Editor

      Jun 16, 2022

      IN A LOT OF WAYS, the summer is a powerful reminder of the freedom and rest we can find in Jesus. Our children and grandchildren, who are on break from school, enliven our homes with laughter and joy. Packing for that long-awaited family vacation mak

      1 min read

    • Article

      WHO’S In The NEWS?

      Aug 25, 2023

      Evangelist Greg Laurie has held what is being called a baptismal service of “biblical proportions” at one of the locations in California where the Jesus Revolution was filmed, in Newport Beach. Media reports reveal that Laurie’s organisation held a s

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Parables Of Jesus

      Dec 30, 2022

      The Parables Of Jesus
      3 min read

    • Article

      Tuesday, March 1

      Feb 16, 2022

      THE OMINOUS CLOUDS BURST AND rain poured down as I left to run errands. Normally, I would have dreaded getting in and out of the car, but not today! I was the proud owner of a Better Brella, the nifty reverse-open umbrella that lets you open and clos

      1 min read

    • Article

      Ask Val

      Mar 18, 2022

      Ask Val
      2 min read

    • Article

      “I Felt a Connection”

      May 26, 2023

      “I Felt a Connection”
      6 min read

    • Article

      Fierce Protector

      May 26, 2023

      It was approaching midnight when I opened the door to let out my golden, Gracie. Instead of sleepily doing her business, she streaked into the yard toward the apple tree, barking her head off. Immediately I knew the interloper was no deer or even a c

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Power of Little Things

      Nov 16, 2022

      The Power of Little Things
      1 min read

    • Article

      Your Writing Critiqued

      Aug 5, 2021

      Your Writing Critiqued
      5 min read

    • Article

      After the Flood Recedes

      Apr 26, 2020

      After the Flood Recedes
      7 min read

    • Article

      Anthropomorphising God

      Feb 24, 2022

      TO SEND REVIEW COPIES, CONTACT THE BOOK REVIEWS EDITOR AT DVBARRETT@FORTEANTIMES.COM Francesca Stavrakopoulou Picador 2021 Hb, 608pp, £25, ISBN 9781509867332 There’s no doubting Francesca Stavrakopoulou’s ambition. In this huge, hugely entertaining,

      11 min read

    • Article

      Anthropomorphising God

      Feb 24, 2022

      TO SEND REVIEW COPIES, CONTACT THE BOOK REVIEWS EDITOR AT DVBARRETT@FORTEANTIMES.COM Francesca Stavrakopoulou Picador 2021 Hb, 608pp, £25, ISBN 9781509867332 There’s no doubting Francesca Stavrakopoulou’s ambition. In this huge, hugely entertaining,

      11 min read

    • Article

      10 Strangest Bible stories

      Sep 9, 2021

      10 Strangest Bible stories
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Parables Of Jesus

      Jul 21, 2023

      In our ‘Parables of Jesus’ article last month, we noted that in one chapter Matthew gathers together seven parables of Jesus about the Kingdom of heaven. Matthew 13 is a “parable instruction manual” as it contains the two parables that Jesus also pro

      3 min read

    • Article

      The unredeemed REDEEMER

      Apr 5, 2024

      The unredeemed REDEEMER
      3 min read

    • Article

      Why Babel Matters Today: Fighting Prejudice & Racism

      Nov 27, 2020

      In Luke 10:25-37, Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan to show what it means to love your neighbour as yourself. In the parable, a man is travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho when thieves attack him and leave him on the road, severely wounde

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Image of Christ this Christmas

      Nov 27, 2020

      It’s not unusual to see nativity scenes this time of year. They’re often lovely scenes, complete with robed figures nestled among sheep, donkeys, and cows on beds of straw. But one thing frequently amiss in these scenes involves the portrayal of Mary

      3 min read

    • Article

      Word Search

      Jul 22, 2022

      Word Search
      2 min read

    • Article

      Judging God: Rereading Job for the First Time

      Sep 23, 2019

      A dramatic new translation of the Bible's most subversive book renders Job's story far more radical than it's ever been presented before. The post Judging God: Rereading Job for the First Time appeared first on The Millions.

      15 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Best of J. Ellsworth Kalas

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Best of J. Ellsworth Kalas - Dr. J. Ellsworth Kalas

      THE Best OF

      J. ELLSWORTH

      KALAS

      Other books in this series

      The Best of Will Willimon

      The Best of James W. Moore

      THE Best OF

      J. ELLSWORTH

      KALAS

      Telling the Greatest

      Story Ever Told

      Like It's Never

      Been Told Before

      Abingdon Press

      Nashville

      THE BEST OF J. ELLSWORTH KALAS

      TELLING THE GREATEST STORY EVER

      TOLD LIKE IT’S NEVER BEEN TOLD

      BEFORE

      Copyright © 1992, 1998, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009,

      2010, 2011, 2012 by Abingdon Press

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed to Permissions, The United Methodist Publishing House, P.O. Box 801, 201 Eighth Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37202-0801 or permissions@umpublishing.org.

      This book is printed on acid-free paper.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been requested from the Library of Congress.

      ISBN 978-1-4267-4210-9

      All scripture quotations unless noted otherwise are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      Scripture quotations marked (RSV) are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      Scripture quotations marked (GNT) are from the Good News Translation in Today's English Version- Second Edition © 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.

      Scripture noted (JB) is excerpted from THE JERUSALEM BIBLE, copyright © 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd. and Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. Reprinted by Permission.

      Scripture quotations marked (KJV) are taken from The Authorized (King James) Version. Rights in the Authorized Version in the United Kingdom are vested in the Crown. Reproduced by permission of the Crown's patentee, Cambridge University Press.

      Scripture quotations marked The Message are taken from THE MESSAGE. Copyright © by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

      Scripture quotations marked CEB are taken from the Common English Bible. Copyright © 2010 by the Common English Bible. All rights reserved. Used by permission. (www.CommonEnglishBible.com)

      12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21—10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

      CONTENTS

      Preface

      1. Biblical Trouble

      2. Biblical Virtues

      3. Biblical Promises

      4. Biblical Characters

      5. Biblical Stories

      PREFACE

      Why the Bible? Why do we keep coming back to this mysterious, challenging, and sometimes daunting book? Is it for the inspiration of its stories, the beauty of its language, the richness of its characters, the wisdom of its advice, the clarity of its insights into the human condition? J. Ellsworth Kalas says that we return to the Bible for all of these reasons, but most importantly for one other: because in the Bible we discover, in the stories of Israel and especially the story of Jesus, the indescribable depths of God's love for us.

      Dr. Kalas has devoted a lifetime to helping people understand the message of the Bible. Through his writings we have discovered truths both timeless and fresh about God's Word. He has shown us how trouble—our trouble with being the people God created us to be—shows up so often in the pages of Scripture. He has opened up the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, the parables of Jesus, and a host of other passages to create a catalog of biblical virtues. He has explored the depths of the biblical promises, God's intention to bless us, to give us a future and a hope, to make of us a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people who are God's own possession (1 Peter 2:9 CEB). He has painted vivid portraits of biblical characters both well known (David, Moses, Paul) and less known (Rahab, Balaam, Elizabeth). And he has served as a master teller of the Bible's stories, reminding us again and again that it all points to the big story of God's love for the world displayed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

      This book brings together some of J. Ellsworth Kalas's best writings as a student and teacher of Scripture. Be sure to keep a Bible handy as you read. Once you've accepted Dr. Kalas's invitation to enter the world of Scripture, you won't want to leave any time soon.

      —the editors

      CHAPTER   ONE

      —————————

      BIBLICAL TROUBLE

      All of us know that something malevolent is loose in our world. And it's been this way for a long time. How long? Well, if it's murder we're talking about, the Bible would take us all the way back to the first family, where murder came to birth between siblings Cain and Abel. And if it's white-collar crime, you can go back almost as far to another family scene, where a younger brother, Jacob, swindled his older twin, Esau.

      But when we look for the perpetrator, we slowly realize that the story is older than either of these crime scenes. Cain and Jacob are really pretty small potatoes. There's somebody more involved, because this is a much bigger deal than a murder here or a fraud there. There's something twisted right at the heart of things. All of us know it, and from as far back as we can imagine, the human race has known it and has sought a name for it. We know there's some master perpetrator, some evil genius at work beyond our imagining, a mind so conscientiously evil that we see evidences of his activity everywhere, in every part of the world, in every culture, and without regard for race, sex, age, or color.

      We have a name for him—several names, in fact. Satan. The devil. The serpent. Lucifer. Beelzebub. Belial. In more recent times, Mephistopheles. And, of course, nicknames have developed too, because anybody as familiar as this character is tagged with names that make him more manageable, like Old Nick or Old Scratch. Which is to say, if we were to post a villain's description in a plan for apprehending, we'd have a long list of aliases. And of course I've stuck pretty much to the language of the biblical world and the Western world, and haven't even approached the names you'd find in some cultures of Africa, South America, Asia, or the islands of the sea. I suspect, however, that we'd find appropriate names in all of those places, with definitions basically not too different from our own.

      As I see it the most descriptive name is the basic biblical term—the adversary. That is, the ultimate perpetrator; the one who really has it in for us; the one who wants most to discomfit, disrupt, disassemble, and destroy us. The adversary. The one so much against us that when passing adversaries appear on the scene, even so transient and unimportant as the person who crowds ahead of us in the checkout line, we figure the devil has had something to do with it. That's why we laughed so readily a generation ago when a comedian developed a character who always excused her conduct by saying, The devil made me do it. The comedian made us feel better about the little acts of nastiness that seem to mark most of our lives at one time or another: we can say that somebody gave us a push. The language gives an almost cozy, playful quality to the villain.

      And villain is of course the right description. The human story is so ideal, almost impossibly so, until this villain appears. The man and the woman—let's call them Adam and Eve—are so happy that the man says, At last! This is what I've been waiting for: bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh (Genesis 2:23, paraphrased). They're both naked, but they're so comfortable with themselves, with each other, and with their total environment (we call it Eden: paradise) that there's no shame. Shame is something you feel only if you're uncomfortable for some reason or other, and there was nothing here to destroy comfort.

      But then came the villain. He didn't look it. But the writer tells us, flat out, that he is more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made (Genesis 3:1). He's so crafty, in fact, that—well, you've heard the old line about the salesman who could sell refrigerators to people in the Arctic? This character moved into perfection and convinced the man and the woman that he had something that would improve on perfection—something heretofore lacking, so that the persuasive villain's offer would put all other wonders in the shade. He put up one small minus sign that made all the pluses of paradise seem a deficit.

      The writer of Genesis doesn't give this villain a name. The writer simply refers to him as the serpent. But when we get to the end of the story—or perhaps I should say, to the beginning of the endless-end of the story—the writer of Revelation picks up the same name. He calls this villain "the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan" (Revelation 20:2, italics added).

      Image1

      Born with a rusty spoon. The most surprising thing to me about that phrase is that I've heard it only once. When I think of the number of people who have a right to say it, and those who express the same philosophy at greater length and with less eloquence, I'm surprised that this phrase hasn't become the possession of a whole subsection of our culture.

      I got the phrase secondhand from a man who worked with my wife some years ago. It was one of those Monday morning conversations, when workers are sipping coffee and inquiring about the weekend just past. When someone asked if the others had had a good night's sleep, one man answered, I never get a good night's sleep. I was born with a rusty spoon in my mouth.

      As my wife, Janet, reports it, the statement wasn't bitter. The speaker was a pleasant man, not given to pessimism or complaint. He was making a summary of life as he had experienced it. The rusty spoon said it all.

      When I heard the story, I said to myself, Now, there's someone who knows his theology. Of course, he's right—not just for himself, but for the whole human race. Mind you, the analysis is more pronounced and obvious in some cases, sometimes even to the level of consummate tragedy. But the man who said it, whether he knew it or not, was doing nothing other than putting the Christian doctrine of original sin in graphic, down-to-earth language. All of us were born with a rusty spoon. As for those to whom we sometimes enviously refer as having been born with a silver spoon in their mouths, if you'll look more carefully at their equipment, you'll find the silver is well tarnished. And you don't have to be a theologian to see it; a rudimentary knowledge of psychology will do. We don't start life with a spoon of our own making or choosing; it's been passed to us by other generations.

      The classic doctrine of original sin says that when Adam and Eve sinned, they brought a curse upon the whole human race. In other words, they bequeathed to us a rusty spoon. Our Puritan ancestors taught this doctrine to their children as part of the alphabet. Since the issue is so basic, they were pretty pragmatic in doing so, especially since A is for Adam: In Adam's Fall, / We sinned all.

      And that's the way it is. We know this not because we've read the doctrine but because we're human beings who have experienced it. We live every day with its reality.

      Please understand me. I'm not speaking simply of our conduct. That's sometimes convincing enough when we find ourselves doing and saying things that we insist are inconsistent with our self-image. I can't believe I did such a thing, we sometimes say as we review some irrational or unseemly act. Well, maybe it's an old family trait. Maybe it's something we learned from Adam and Eve.

      But I repeat, I'm not speaking simply of our conduct. I'm thinking of all the other evidences that we are born into a world where sin was here before we were. Ponder our human scene. You didn't ask for a world where there's poverty, disease, and war; they were here waiting for you when you came. We inherited them. Let me hasten to add that we also didn't ask for a world where there are such things as the music of Bach, the writing of Shakespeare, and the art of Michelangelo; these, too, were waiting when we came. But in truth, all of us are born into a world where sin (as well as beauty) has a head start on us. It's a world where we are exposed early to pain, hatred, thoughtlessness, and irritability so that these unpleasant realities can easily become factors in our own personalities before we realize it. And this is true even before we get into the embarrassing business of those inclinations and traits that our families tell us we got from some relative who we wish hadn't contributed to our genetic line.

      Some theologian a generation ago said that every human being is born with a pack on his or her back. That is, we come into this world with an accumulation from previous generations. We are likely to take the good for granted; our worst sin in that respect is that we don't use our good inheritance more effectively. But our problem, of course, is coping with the bad. What do we do with the pack on our back? How do we handle the rusty spoon?

      Image1

      I pause at Jesus' story of a farmer who is sowing seed. Some of the seed (which, Jesus explains, represents the word of the kingdom) falls on the pathway, and almost immediately the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart (Matthew 13:19). This is the primary business of the evil one, to prevent us humans from accepting the redeeming message. Since he is the father of lies, nothing disturbs him more than the prospect of our getting the truth. Most of us recognize the Adversary best when he comes in the form of disaster or trouble or pain. But for our Adversary, these are only means to an end. The goal of the Adversary is to keep us from truth. Because, of course, the ultimate goal of our enemy is to keep us. The truth will set us free. We must therefore, by all means, be kept from the truth.

      Three of the Gospels tell us of Jesus' particular encounter with the Adversary, and Luke—whose report is the longest—concludes by saying that the devil departed from him until an opportune time (Luke 4:13). As I read the gospel stories about Jesus, I suspect that there were opportune times without end. In my mind, the most instructive element in this story is in the very fact that the Adversary dared to approach Jesus, and did so repeatedly. Here we have a measure of the arrogance of our enemy and of his unceasing ambition. Having lost his place in the heavenlies because of his prideful rebellion (as Isaiah and his interpreters tell the story) but having then succeeded in ruining Eden and setting up a beachhead on all human souls, the Adversary obviously saw no reason he could not also seduce God's Son, now

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1