In The Nick of Time

^{Note: This article is the first of a three-part exchange between Jeff Straub and Kevin Bauder.}

by Jeff Straub

I have to admit, I like ice cream—chocolate, moose tracks, peaches and cream—you name it, and I like it. Baskin-Robbins, Cold Stone Creamery, Ben & Jerry’s. You get the picture.

I really like chocolate. The more chocolate, the better. One store in Canada had a Chocolate Decadent. It was good!

“Do you have the power of God?” The Great Man bellowed this question in a mock-Texas accent. With popping veins and a hoarse voice, he bawled out a second time, “I said, do you have the POWER of GOD!?” Clearly, he thought that the impressionable youngsters to whom he was speaking did not have that power. He went on to tell them what a bunch of failures most of them would likely become (not at all like him). God’s power, after all, was something reserved for the few. It came only to the spiritual equivalents of Abraham Lincoln and Douglas MacArthur.

by Jeff Straub

Act 1 l Act 2 l Act 3 l Act 4

Act 1 l Act 2 l Act 3

In spite of my perplexity about theater, the truth is that occasionally I still see it. I am assaulted with it on airliners. I am exposed to it in other people’s homes. Other circumstances also arise.

The apostle Paul was under arrest, being transported to Rome by a military guard. Along the way, his ship put in at the Lycian port of Myra, where the Roman centurion found a different ship that was sailing to Italy (Acts 27:5-6). The book of Acts does not tell how long Paul was in Myra between ships.

They say that confession is good for the soul. Well, here’s my confession.

I love the theater.

I fell in love during my junior year in high school. On a whim I tried out for a school play and somehow ended up with a lead role. That was a turning point in my life. Acting was the first thing I discovered that I could do really well.

My parents came to Christ when I was about three or four years old. They responded to the witness of a home missionary who was planting a fundamental Baptist church in their small Michigan town. After they were baptized and joined that church, they brought up their children under the sound of its teaching.