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Is it Adam and Eve or Tarzan and Jane?
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Children often bring a fresh perspective and wonder to the people and things of the Bible.
 
I heard about a Sunday school class in Louisiana where the teacher asked a little boy if he could tell the names of the first man and woman whom God created in the Garden of Eden. When he did not respond, the music minister’s daughter raised her hand, excitedly saying, “I know! I know!” So the teacher asked, “What were the names of the first man and woman?” She proudly proclaimed, “Tarzan and Jane!”
 
My mother tells about teaching a Sunday school class at a rural church in Mississippi, when the students were asked to draw a picture of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. One little boy had a picture of Jesus, and a series of straight-line rows. Mom pointed to the rows and asked,
“What’s that?” He replied as if she should know, “Them’s the tomatoes.”
 
What a great opportunity we have as parents to read the Bible to our children and pass along the truths of our faith. The Bible encourages us to share the Word of God when our children and to seize teachable moments with them: “Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (Deuteronomy 6:6, HCSB). 
 
There are some wonderful children’s Bible story books available at most Christian bookstores that are excellent for reading before bedtime. Like
Deuteronomy says, just pointing out things as we go along through life, and commenting on how God made them, can lead to teachable moments.
Who knows? You may get some Tarzan and tomato stories of your own!
 
Copyright 2007 by Bob Rogers. Read this column each Thursday for a mix of religion and humor. For more “Holy Humor,” go to the Web page of First Baptist Church of Rincon and click on “Holy Humor.”

Is there a church for a big woman with an itch?
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A pastor was called to be guest preacher at a church. He knew this church was different when the congregation ended every line of the hymn with the shout of “yeehah!”


As he stood to preach, he noticed that people were spread out on the pews. He would see a person, then a space, then another person, and another space. He wondered why nobody sat next to another person, when he noticed on the pew beside each person was a cowboy hat.


Another time this same preacher was invited to a new church in the city. He was surprised to see that everybody there looked like they had fallen face first into a tackle box, because they had piercings and earrings on every part of the body imaginable. A rock band was playing alternative music on the stage.


As different as these two churches were, they were both growing and reaching people for Christ.


Years ago I was pastor of a small country church in the backwoods of Mississippi. There was another Baptist church just five miles away in the town (population 600). The pastor’s wife at the town church asked me, “Why don’t our two churches merge?” I said, “There are people in my church who would not feel comfortable or fit in at your town church.” She said, “Oh, come on. We’re a small town church. What could be so different?”


I said, “Well, I got one really big woman in my church who, when she gets to feeling an itch, she pulls her dress halfway up and she scratches herself.”


The eyes of this pastor’s wife got really big and she said, “I see what you mean.”


I forgot to tell her about another woman in my church who saw a roach running across the wood floor, so she stomped on it with her bare foot, laughed and shouted, “Aha! I got him!”


Yep, the culture was definitely different where I was pastor.


Jesus upset the religious establishment because He crossed cultural barriers. He loved to eat with tax collectors and Gentiles and other strange people. Jesus walked into the land of Samaria, full of half-breed Jews who worshiped in weird ways and talked different and smelled different.


Jesus walked right up to a Samaritan woman at a well and started talking her language. He accepted her culture, but he let her know her sinful lifestyle had to change. Soon she had the whole town following Jesus (see John 4).


So what cultural barrier is keeping somebody in your community from hearing the gospel? If you tear down the cultural barriers to share Christ in your neighborhood, you may hear the angels shouting, “Yeehah!”


Copyright 2014 by Bob Rogers. Email: brogers@fbcrincon.com. Read this column each Friday in the Herald. Visit my blog at www.bobrogers.me.