Preferring the Brethren

My introduction, because I think it had a big impact. Now, it was given, and I believe recorded in Pasadena, about 25 years ago. So I'm sure some won't remember, but some might very well. It was very popular. It was played across the country in congregations, partly because it was very funny. But also because it was very effective, I think, at accomplishing its purpose. It did both very well. I don't remember what title the minister gave it, but most people I've talked to just referred to it as the Phoenix by Sundown sermon. I thought I heard a chuckle. Usually, there used to be a time when all I had to do was say that, and people would start laughing. They remembered, maybe, well, I don't know, maybe it wasn't played in Portsmouth. Or people didn't think it was very funny here. But the main point of that sermon was to encourage men and women to understand each other.

One thing that was unorthodox that I didn't necessarily think was a model I would want to follow is he only cited one scripture, 1 Peter 3, verse 7, which is brief enough. I'll just cite it rather than turning there. It says, Husbands dwell with them with understanding, that is, men and women. It was directed not only to husbands to understand women, but for women, understand your husbands. It focused on understanding many of the significant differences between men and women.

It focused on some of the things like social scientists have studied and shown that typically a man will speak about 2,000 words in any given day, whereas a woman will speak about 7,000 words in a given day. No word on how many each listens to. But men and women often talk for different purposes. Men tend to think in terms of identifying a problem and finding a solution. That's just the way our brains are wired, whereas women often just want to share the experience. There have been frustrations among married couples where a woman might be explaining something to her husband, and he listens for a while and then interrupts and says, Okay, now you need to do this. It might turn out she knew the solution all along. That wasn't the point. She wanted him to share with the experience and empathize. One of the things I found amazing, I knew this was true, but listening to the radio driving here from Athens, that same exact scenario was mentioned on the radio program that I was listening to. It goes to show I was right. But that's men. We tend to be goal-oriented, task-oriented. If we're on a road trip, we focus on making good time. We've got to find the most direct route. And surprisingly, even men that don't talk a lot will talk to each other for a long time about what's the best route to take from one place to another.

Women are more likely to focus on the experience of the journey. You know, want to stop and see some sights, perhaps eat at a unique restaurant in the way. While the man's saying, no, no, no time for sightseeing. We've got to get to Phoenix by sundown. What? The kids need a potty break? Well, there's a plastic jar back there. Can't they use that? You know, we need to focus on finding the right bypass. We might get to Phoenix by sundown. Now, there are some elements of that in the sermon that I was referring to. And as I said, it's pretty well remembered, both for its humor and its truth. But I want to point the fact that all of us do need to dwell together with understanding. And that goes well beyond the differences between male and female thinking. God made human beings so that there's a tremendous variety of physically, mentally, emotionally, and more. If we're going to follow God's commands to love and care for each other, we need to be aware of. And we need to have some understanding of some of the basic differences. And I want to go into that somewhat today. Now, I'm not going to explain all of the differences because I'm still learning them myself. So it might be good to address, why do we need to know that? Because there might be some circles where people will say, well, it's not my problem if people don't get me and I don't get them. You know, I am the way I am, and that's just tough. Now, is that how we as Christians should be? Should we think, well, I am what I am and people will adapt? Well, let's consider what Jesus taught. Now, this is a very simple Scripture, but let's go to Matthew 7 and verse 12. It does bear reading.

Matthew 7 and verse 12, it's commonly referred to as the golden rule, and it's often stated in slightly different words. But Jesus there said, Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them. For this is the law and the prophets. What you want people to do to you, that's what you do to them. And when he says, this is the law and the prophets, that should remind you of something. There's another place where he discussed something being equal to all the law and the prophets. And I'm not going to turn there because I've cited this Scripture many times, but in Matthew 22 is the example of where someone came to Jesus, testing him and said, What's the greatest commandment of the law? He didn't have to hesitate. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul. And the second greatest is just like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. And he said, on these two, hang all the law and the prophets. I wanted to say that all the law and the prophets, it says, if you're showing love to your neighbor as yourself, and loving God beyond everything, you'll end up fulfilling all of this. And of course you could turn around. If you're not sure how to show love to God, read the Bible, read the law and the prophets. It'll tell you what you need to do or not do. I think we understand that concept pretty well. But then, does the golden rule mean that we need to treat every single person in the exact same way that we want to treat us? Want them to treat us? Well, on the surface you say, well, yes, that's what Jesus said. But then again, let's think of it. You watch the summer camp video. Now, I do this most... I've done... let me back up and try to say that again. Most of my life I've been what I call a morning person, an early riser, and I can't even more so. I do not want to oversleep at camp. I'm up by 5.30 every morning when I'm at camp, so I don't miss the best part of the day. And if for some reason I were oversleeping, someone would be showing me great love if they woke me up. Frank, I don't want you to miss this. So if I want to love you, should I start calling you up by 5.45 to make sure you haven't overslept? Now, I know some of you are thinking, you'd be a little late. I'm already out the door along by then. So I understand that. But it goes the other way. If you're up that early, does that mean... do you want someone who really likes watching Jay Leno to give you a call and wake you up to make sure you don't miss the monologue? So I think not. And I know Sue doesn't appreciate it if I'm up at 6, if I make a lot of noise to show my love.

So what about the golden rule? Well, I think in this case, fulfilling the golden rule would mean for me to show the same respect for another person's sleeping habits that I would want them to show for mine. And that became very clear to me when I was a grad student at Texas A&M. I lived in a house with bachelors. And at one point, one of the older fellows graduated and left.

And in this place, we had a 19-year-old freshman who thought guitar practice at 3 in the morning was a great thing to do. And I didn't see that as showing great love. Now, the way I expressed my love to him wasn't so great either on that occasion, but we'll talk about that another time. And they're even small things. My son, Connor, loves to be tickled. But you know what? His dad does not. So I don't consider it showing me love of someone—well, and Sue's the only one that really is involved in both of those situations. So, you know, understanding differences in personality and temperament are valuable for us getting along with family and friends.

But let's take the bigger perspective. We are looking at ourselves as future kings and priests in God's kingdom. We need to learn to understand and relate to people of many different backgrounds and temperaments for bigger reasons than that. We need to be prepared to teach and lead all kinds of people. Let's go to 1 Corinthians 9. The Apostle Paul understood that, and he not only lived it in his life, but he expressed it in words pretty well. 1 Corinthians 9, and we'll begin in verse 19. 1 Corinthians 9, 19, For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more.

And to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win the Jews. Now, obviously we know only God the Father can draw someone and open their mind, but we want to use an approach that will at least get someone's attention and be able to preach the gospel, and God might use that as a device to call them. He says, To those that are under the law as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law. To those without the law as without the law, not being without the law towards God, but under the law towards Christ.

So he said, I don't not keep the law, but I approach people that don't believe in the law in a different way, that I might win those who are without the law. To the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. I do this for the gospel's sake, that I might be a partaker of it with you. Let's cap this up in the next chapter, 1 Corinthians 10 and verse 32.

It makes a point of going the extra mile or adapting your technique to reach people. We also want to avoid doing things so that we don't shut people off. Verse 32, he says, Give no offense, either to the Jews or to the Greeks or to the Church of God. Just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many that they may be saved.

So we want to be able to adapt our behavior to help people, not for self-serving, of course. As I said, Paul said that, and Paul did it. But we can also see clearly from the example of Jesus Christ that he did this.

There are a number of occasions where he did. I'm going to focus in on just one of them today. There's a situation where Jesus dealt with the sisters Mary and Martha. Now, we know he knew them and loved them. We first meet them when Jesus came to their house. And I'm not going to go to that story, but you might remember he comes in, and Martha is really busy serving, and she's hustling and bustling, getting the food and washing dishes.

And her sister Mary plunks herself down and just listens. Martha gets frustrated and says, Lord, don't you see she's making me do all the work? Martha, Martha, you're troubled about a lot of things, but Mary's chosen one thing that's important. I'm not going to take that away from her. So already he dealt with them differently. Let's see how he deals with them in one of the most difficult situations in their life in John 11. John 11 is the famous story of Lazarus, who was the brother of Mary and Martha. Now, Jesus knew that Lazarus was sick, and when he found out, he waited.

He didn't go right away, lay hands on him and heal him. Jesus waited long enough for Lazarus to die, and then went to see him. Now, he had a plan in mind, but he didn't explain what that plan was to very many people. So we're going to pick up in verse 20.

Jesus comes and sends word that he's there, and so Martha comes out first to see him. Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him. Mary was sitting in the house. Now, Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.

And Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again. Martha said, I know he'll rise again in the resurrection on the last day. Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he may die, he will live. Whoever lives and believes on me will never die. Do you believe this? She said, Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world. Okay, so notice they had a little discussion, and apparently he knew she was ready to be taught in this. Let's move ahead to see now, Martha sends word that Jesus wants to see Mary. So we go to verse 32.

And I'm imagining maybe he put his arm around her and he cried with her. This wasn't the time to give her a lesson. They had different temperaments, and he dealt with them in different ways, even though they were sisters and they were in the exact same situation. And I've got to admit, I'd never really thought about that until I was working on the sermon, and I said, Huh, look at that! I'm a bit thick in that way sometimes. You know, I'm the type that's like, okay, in this situation, you pull out this set of behavior and you do this with people. But it's starting to get through to me. You know, with different people, it's different things. Some people you need to talk to and explain things. Other people, you just need to give a hug. Or you need to listen, you know, and perhaps cry with them. Jesus was a master of that. He knew that. So we see that showing love is not always treating another person the exact same way that I want to be treated, but rather treating that person with the same degree of love and respect that I would want to be treated with. Now, to be able to do that, though, we have to have some understanding of the differences among people. Now, we'll come back to the Bible in a bit, but for now, I want to step aside into an area that I'm not the most comfortable in, that of pop psychology. But I think it's helpful. Now, in preparing this message, I started thinking, what are different ways that the differences among people can be categorized and have been analyzed?

I discovered there's a lot. I very quickly came up with five that I thought I would address. There's differences between men and women, which we've touched on, differences between the generations, differences between the way different people learn and process information, differences in how people perceive and express emotion, particularly love, and also in temperament and personality.

I'm going to be working my way through some of these, hopefully not too quickly. I'm trying to moderate my speed here today. But I'll say, normally we like to have 90-minute services after a Bible study. This might go a little bit longer. I hope you'll bear with me. But before I delve into looking at some of those, as I thought about this broad field, I was reminded of a scene from one of my favorite movies. I might get some criticism about this, because the movie I'm thinking of is titled Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. Kevin Costner played Robin Hood and did a really lousy job of having an English accent. What's interesting, I actually heard a radio interview with him once and learned that one of the reasons for that is they were in a hurry making the movie. The plan was to redub the voiceover later with a better accent, and then they never got around to doing it.

That has nothing to do with the point I'm citing in the movie, but people have been critical of me because I like that movie so much. In this movie, Kevin Costner is Robin Hood, who went off after Richard the Lionheart fighting in the Crusades. He got captured. He's in Jerusalem, and he's trying to find a way to escape. He does. He gets out, and there's a Muslim there, a Black Moor, played by Morgan Freeman, who says, Save me!

I have a death sentence! So Robin Hood frees him, and they go off together. Morgan Freeman determines that since Robin Hood saved his life, he has to stay with him until he returns the favor. So this sophisticated Black Muslim warrior comes to Old England, and they don't know what to make of him. This guy is different. He looks different. He acts different. What I'm coming down to is this scene in the movie where they're in the camp, I'm guessing in Sherwood Forest. I don't remember that much, but people are busy doing their thing.

Morgan Freeman is sitting there doing something, and a little girl walks up to him. She's probably five or six years old, and she's looking at him, and he smiles. She says, Did God paint you? He says, What? Did God paint you? Then he realizes he's talking about the color of his skin. He says, For sure. Why? He hesitates. Now, he says, Allah. I'm not going to say that Allah and the word God can be used interchangeably. I know there's differences.

But for the sake of this, he could have been saying, God loves wondrous variety. He had a good accent in the movie. I thought, coming from an odd movie, that was pretty profound. God loves wondrous variety. We can see that in his creation. We can walk outside anywhere you look. Just look down at a grassy field, and you see a lot of variety. Look in this room. There's a lot of wondrous variety. So let's consider some of the ways that we can differentiate from each other. And by the way, I caught myself, because I'm going to talk about differences that aren't necessarily right or wrong.

Please don't get the idea that I'm trying to expound a theory that there's no right or no wrong, that everything's okay. Of course, there is right and wrong, and we do need to work to overcome our faults. So I'm not making that point. But there are some differences that are just different. Red is not right and blue wrong. Just red and blue are different from each other, even though they're both colors. So let's go back to briefly look at male and female.

I touched on that in my introduction. And I think you probably got the point. We think differently. I'll just add that science has since the 1970s proved that one of the major ideas that became popular in the 60s and 70s is absolutely wrong. And that idea that became popular is that men and women are actually the exact same except for the plumbing. And I actually, in an email, once had a minister's wife say that. And I said, I don't think we're the exact same except for the plumbing. We're different in different ways. And science has proved that we are different in a lot of different ways.

And especially up here in our heads. One of the ways that I know has been documented is that women have just a tremendously greater number of neural connections between the two hemispheres of the brain. And I mean, it's in the millions or billions, so I'm not sure, but their brains are interconnected and work together. Their brains' hemispheres of the brain are interconnected and work better together. In general, women tend to be better multitaskers and better at empathy and understanding. Whereas men apparently have some type of brain damage to where the two halves of our brain don't communicate back and forth.

And I think the science says that when we're in the womb, they start off the same and somehow the men's... I know maybe damage isn't the word, but our brains don't work the same way. And of course there's differences in the body chemistry that they're still studying to learn. I mean, the hormones alone are vast things that we could study. But I read a scientific article once that explained that if you take a quart of man's blood and a quart of women's blood, the men's blood will have a lot more red blood cells. And I don't understand why that is, but that explains why men will tend to be stronger and have greater stamina.

They've got more red blood cells carrying more oxygen than women. And of course you combine that with the hormones and such, and men tend to be bigger, faster, stronger. And God created that way. Of course. We read back in Genesis, as I said, you know these scriptures in Genesis 2.18 God said, It's not good for a man to be alone. I'll make a helper meet for him. Fitting. Comparable. Not the exact same. God made men and women both in his image, but different.

That's Genesis 1.27. God created mankind in his own image, male and female. He created them. Now, I take it from that, and from what we've learned, my own particular theory on this, and I think I've explained it here before, is that since God is not male or female, we use male pronouns to describe him, and he is described as the father, but he's asexual, you know, when it comes to, you know, how his brain is wired.

He doesn't have to worry about neural connections. But my theory is that God took some of his features and made them more dominant in men, and other of his features and made them more dominant in women. And so that when men and women are combined in a family, marriage, that's when they're the most in God's image. As I said, that's my own personal theory, so if science disproves that or if somewhere in the Bible tends to disprove it, you could take it for that.

But I think there's something to that. And having been married now, coming up on ten years, I feel like I'm much more in God's image as part of a family than I ever was on my own. So let's move on and address some other things so I don't get bogged down. The next one I wanted to mention came from reading a book by Dr. Gary Chapman, and many of you might have heard of this. It's entitled, The Five Love Languages. And I first heard of it several years ago when Mr. Luecker mentioned it in a sermon. And he referred to it a number of times.

I heard other ministers mention it. I could think, well, maybe I should read this book. And some months ago, I found a copy at a used bookstore. I don't know if that's a difference between men and women or just me and other people, but, you know, I'm always waiting for the bargain. I'm a little cheap. But I found it in a used bookstore. It didn't cost much. And read through it in a couple days. It's a good read.

If any of you are interested, I do recommend it. Now, the premise of his book is based on the idea that every human being has a fundamental need to feel loved and to express love. But we have a need to feel that someone loves us, particularly our spouse. You know, we marry someone, and of course we feel in love at that time, but over the long haul, we need it fulfilled in more than just that emotional high of being in love.

But Dr. Chapman says that we do not always perceive or express love in the same way. Different people have different ways of perceiving or expressing love, and he categorized it into five basic languages. Not different verbal languages, but ways that we express love that people just have. And, well, I'll come to that a little bit later, but let me say what the five are the way he describes it. The first one he called words of affirmation. Words of affirmation, that means saying things like, I love you, and paying compliments, saying how much I appreciate you, saying thank you, saying, oh, you're pretty, or this or that.

So that's a way of expressing love. The second one he gave was quality time. Quality time, that is being there for that person, doing things together, and giving undistracted attention. A third one is giving and receiving gifts. Now, before you think that, boy, that's materialistic, the giving and receiving gifts has nothing to do with the value or the monetary cost of the gift.

It's that it's a visible symbol, a token of the underlying feeling. A similar one is the fourth language is acts of service. Acts of service, and again, that's a physical action that's a representation of the love underneath. And that could be things like washing dishes, changing diapers, doing service to the car, anything that's doing an act of service can be perceived as an act of love. And then the fifth one was physical touch. And that's physical touch aside from sexual contact, but things like holding hands, giving a hug, a pat on the back. Dr. Chapman says that these languages are not something that a person chooses, and he doesn't get into whether he thought that, at least in his book, he doesn't discuss whether he thinks they're genetic or not.

I suspect that it's more in the way a person is raised, those influences on you when you're too young to even remember later on. But he does make the point that you can't just arbitrarily choose your language, or even very easily change it. The way you perceive love and tend to express it is pretty much set into you. But you can learn what it is, and you can learn what your spouse's is so that you can communicate. Just like, you know, I don't remember learning English, I just speak English.

But I did learn a little bit of French, but very well. I learned to read a lot. I don't speak it very well, but I can communicate in French to some degree if I have to, because I trained myself in that way. Now, I'll mention Sue and I took a quiz that deals with this type of thing, and we learned some interesting things.

One, we're pretty compatible. I don't remember. It came in one of her women's magazines that she picked up. But we had some significant differences. She's looking a little embarrassed. I'm going to reveal some things about us. We were compatible, except one of the interesting things is one of her primary love languages was giving and receiving gifts. And that was near the bottom of the scale for me. And so it's like, oh, what do you know?

I'm not speaking her language. Now, it's fortunate we haven't had marital troubles, because over the years, I've sent her cards and given her flowers and things, and not necessarily realized how much that those things meant. And likewise, Sue has always been a gift-giver. And as I said, it's not the dollar value. Sometimes it's little things, and as a dense man, I'm like, oh, okay, that's nice. Not realizing that this means I love you.

And some of them are really cool things. I shouldn't embarrass her. I think one of the best things, you know, she knows that I grew up reading comic books and loved those. So one year for my birthday, she got me a really nice die-cast Batmobile, which, you know, is really cool. But I didn't realize, I thought it meant, no, you like Batman, here's something. But it means I love you. Now, I do take good care of it. Connor loves it even more than I do.

I have to be careful. I let him play with it some, but it does mean something to me. I don't let him take it and lose it down the register and down into the furnace, like some of his other cars. Now, my primary love language turned out to be physical touch. And so that was enlightening. You know, I would always go around and hold hands or hug or pat. And I probably, you know, Sue didn't always perceive the emotional impact of that for me.

So it's good for us to realize these things about each other. You might be married to someone for years. And Dr. Chapman's book, he explains, you know, he's a marriage counselor, by the way. That's how he developed this. But he'd deal with people who had problems for years and years, and were about to get divorced, and look at the things they said and say, well, you guys aren't communicating. You love each other, but you're not letting each other know that, and so your emotional tank is drained.

And as I said, this applies mostly to married couples, but he does go out of his way to say that this way to communicate love and appreciation and affection affects other relationships as well. It can between parents and children.

It can between coworkers. And it can among brethren in a congregation. Just think that might account for why some people are more wanting to shake hands with people, or give a hug. It can be a way of expressing emotion that doesn't carry the same weight with other people. Some people might feel empty if they don't get sufficient time from someone that matters to them in the congregation. Or words of encouragement.

And you might not realize that, that somebody feels like they're lacking something. Or you're lacking communicating it in a way that people can understand. Now let's move on to another area. One that's common in our country and in the church, because we're in the... And this is specific to the United States. It would apply in other countries, but you'd have to break it down differently. And that's the idea of generations. We have in the United States, and thus in the church right now, four distinct and dominant generations.

People are strongly shaped and influenced by the events and the environment during which they grew to maturity. So different generations will tend to have some fairly distinct characteristics. Now, I've learned about this by reading some different articles, and I've heard two or three different ministers give talks on it that each last in more than an hour, so I'm condensing quite a bit. I hope you'll understand that these are very brief and generalities.

They're not exact. But among the generations we focus on, the oldest are called the traditionalists. Traditionalists. These are born before 1945 in general. So people who tend to be about 68 years or older.

The big events that shaped them were the Great Depression and the Second World War. Now, in some cases, they might have been born after those things, but they were still having a strong impact on society. So as such, traditionalists tend to value discipline and sacrifice. They're not likely to complain much, and they will follow instructions. They've been trained to put duty before pleasure. Within the Church, ministers who study this say that traditionalists tend to like hearing about doctrine, and they want a clear structure of authority, and they're very loyal to the Church and to brethren.

Now, keep that in the back of your mind as we look at some of the other generation. The next one is a phrase we hear all the time, baby boomers. Baby boomers born typically, and like I said, this is a generality, between 1946 and 1964. It's easy to get those backwards. So they would age and range from about 49 to 67. They were largely influenced by the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement.

They'll tend to respect authority, but they are willing to speak up, and they expect to be heard. They value self-improvement. One of the things that's very, I think, significant to this generation, they tend to take abundance for granted. They expect that there's a lot of resources because look at the American society since the post-World War II period.

Now, within the Church, baby boomers are willing to serve. Sometimes can tend to be workaholics. They like best to be part of a team, and they expect other people to join the team. They also support charitable work and charitable actions, and they always expect others to. That's one thing, and I've noticed that talking to different ministers. Baby boomers are most likely to say, well, let's put this out there. People will support it, because that's their natural way of thinking. And you'll see a difference with Generation X comes up in that.

And I wonder, the other names are pretty... The other names seem to fit. Generation X says, we couldn't think of a title for this one, so just call them X. But they tend to be born between 1964 and 1982, so age ranged from about 31 to 48. They were very much influenced, growing up, by the energy crises of the 1970s, and by the United States' decline in power. Rather than the older generations, the older generations, the previous generations, the United States was always on top or moving that direction. Another major impact is the decline of the family.

Huge spike in divorce rates during the time of maturity for the Gen Xers. Thus, they tend to be very self-reliant and pragmatic. And sometimes they can be caught expressing a little bit of bitterness towards the baby boomers, saying, boy, you used up all the resources and ruined the world for us. I speak a little bit in first person because I'm a Gen Xer.

I was born right on the edge. Some categories want to put me in the baby boomers, but when I look at the traits they describe, it's like, no, I'm an Xer. Now, in the church, Gen Xers like to keep the big picture in mind. They tend to be more willing to work on their own, more individualistic. They like direct communication and feedback. And within the church in particular, because of what happened in the 1990s with the great split in the church and the heresy, Gen Xers are the fewest in number in the church and usually are aware of it. It's often you'll see people in that age group thinking of themselves as a bridge between the baby boomers and the millennials and trying to help cooperation.

So let's move on. The next group is called the millennials. Those born from about 1983 to 2000, so age from 13 up to about 30. So those of you that are under 13, we haven't come up with a name for you guys yet. We don't know what you are, but your time will come. But the millennials tend to have been shaped, we think, we're still studying this, by the rise of globalization. The world is very interrelated and has been all of their life, and also by the war on terror, which older people might think, well, that's new, it just started.

It's been going on most of the lives of someone that's in their 20s. Now, the millennials tend to be very self-confident. They rely on and they expect collaboration, and as you might have guessed, they're very comfortable with advanced electronic technology. Within the church, millennials do not feel strong loyalties to corporate organizations. Now, that's in stark contrast with the traditionalists. Traditionalists are, I'm loyal to Herbert Armstrong, and was the worldwide Church of God, and if you're not with us, you're not anything.

Most people don't say it quite that harshly, but millennials tend to say, what are you talking about? They never knew Herbert W. Armstrong, and most of them never knew the worldwide Church of God, and they don't have as strong a loyalty. As I said, I'm not poking or being critical of different groups, just saying, you see the world in a different way. Millennials tend to feel more free to question and do not fear disagreeing, even with those in authority. And some ministers have said that they tend to have a higher regard for their own opinion than their education experience might warrant.

But they do want responsibility. They're willing to serve, but they're willing to sacrifice, but they do want to understand why, and they're willing to question that. Now, I've got a note here to stress again that these are very general stereotypes, and I'm not trying to say that one is better than the other, and we've got to fix those kids, or those adults are out of whack and they don't know what's going on.

But we should recognize that not all of us who are called into the church grew up in the same world. This world has been changing dramatically, and the world we grew up in tends to affect the way we look at both the world and the church. A person who's younger than 30 might look at something we do and say, well, why do we do it that way? Well, Mr. Armstrong always did it that way. And a younger person will say, well, yeah, but why did he do it that way?

Whereas, as I said, an older person might say, if it's good enough for Mr. Armstrong, it's good enough for us. We don't have to question. Now, younger people might say, man, I've got to drive 45 whole minutes to church, and there's hardly anybody my age there. Whereas the older people are saying, 45 minutes? I was thankful when they cut it down in less than three hours. I remember when a minister lived within two states of us and we were thrilled. Now, my point here is, as I said, don't criticize, but understand that we see things differently. For teens, realize that in your grandparents' time, a person was given a responsibility in the church generally only after quite a bit of time in preparing and paying their dues.

And they often had to invent the procedures that we now follow. They were breaking new ground. But I'll also say grandparents, you need to remember that our teens and young adults have been getting training and experience in ways that weren't available when we were their age. And they have the benefit of the work that's been done all these years.

Older people did invent procedures, and now they're willing to take that and sometimes try to improve it. The young people tend to be more ready and capable than we often think they are. But it's interesting, on the contrary, kids are often not as ready and capable as they think they are. So we're both having to learn and get ourselves in perspective.

Now, I want to move on to another field of research that I'm only going to touch on briefly because I'm not an expert in it, but I've had some educational psychology classes way back in the distant future. And the education... People who teach like to use the term, multiple intelligences. Multiple intelligences. This is a phrase from educational psychology, and it refers to the fact that different people will receive and process information and learn in different ways. Now, that can be branched out and explained in great detail. I just want to focus on one particular aspect of it. And that is, some people are what we would call visual learners. They see it, and that's the best way they learn. But there are others that learn better differently. Some people are what's called aural learners. That's hard to say. It's A-U-R-A-L. Listening learners. They do better by hearing, and they need to give something they're listening to their full attention. Others are what's called kinesthetic learners. That means they learn best by doing, or if they can pick up something and touch it and move it around. And people with those different styles will often go into different job fields where they can excel with their particular style of learning. Now, as I said, I don't want to discuss this field of study much, but it is good for us to remember. Like, say you're a visual learner, you might be sitting in a church service taking a lot of notes because you learn well by seeing it on the page. And even if you're the one that put it on the page. And I say that because that's me. I'm a strong visual learner. And you look over at somebody down in their row, and they're just sitting there. What's wrong with that lazy person? He's not taking any notes. Could be that he's an aural learner, and he needs to be giving his undivided attention to listening, and taking notes would mess that up.

Could be. Now, there are some studies that show that the more you can engage more than one type of learning, the better you learn. So if you can get visual and listening and doing, that makes it all the better. So I still am a fan of listening and taking notes, which is why, of course, I would take notes anyways.

But I'm going to leave that, as I said. I don't want to go too much into educational psychology because I might misspeak, and I don't want to go off the wrong track, and there are people better qualified even in the audience than I am. Let's move on to what I think is a more interesting and potentially fun way of analyzing people, and that's personality or temperament traits. Now, a lot of different systems have been developed to look at people's personalities. And so, before I even get into those, I'll mention some of the broad terms come up, and they do have specific definitions, even though we sometimes intermix them. The first one is character. Character, when you're discussing personality differences, a scientist or psychologist would call character the real you. This is the part of you that combines your natural temperament with your moral values and your belief and your self-discipline. And I like that. I think it fits very well with the definition that Mr. Armstrong used for so many years.

He said character is the ability to know what's right and then consciously and deliberately do what's right. And, of course, the obverse would be not doing what's wrong. That's good. I don't think that contradicts the social scientist. Now, personality, they would say, is your outward expression of yourself.

The outward, the way you express yourself to others. Now, that could differ from your character depending on how private you are. There might be parts of your character that you cover up because you want to keep private. Or you could be cynical and say, because you're deceptive. But deceptive and private can be two very different things. Now, often we use temperament and personality interchangeably, and I've done that a lot of times, too. But what the people that do these studies would say is temperament is the collection of your inborn traits that unconsciously affect your thinking and your emotions and behavior.

And they're what you got genetically. You were born with these. You got them from your two parents and your four grandparents, and you got what you got. Now, analyzing people and studying these traits goes back thousands of years. And as far back as the ancient Greeks, mankind had looked at people and said, there's four basic personality types or temperament types.

The Greeks categorized them by what they thought were the four main bodily fluids. And they thought whichever fluid you had the most of in you, that determined your personality. And so those fluids, actually, their categories continue into English in the form of adjectives, choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic, and sanguine. But we don't use those. We use them as adjectives. Actually, they don't even get used as adjectives that much anymore. But some of the other categories do. I became familiar with a couple of ways of categorizing people that I'll refer to. One of them uses animals to represent different personality types.

The other, color. And actually, I'll mention this. I learned about the color one when attending the leadership weekend at the home office, whenever that was, seven, six, eight years ago. I remember Kevin and Debbie Call were both there and did the same procedure. I don't remember which colors they were, but I'll reveal mine later. But if we compare these up, they're pretty similar. One of the categories is the lion personality, which matches with the color red. If you wanted to attach a question to that, you might say, am I in charge yet? The lion wants to be in charge. This is a person that tends to be driving and logical and proactive. Now, those tend to be strengths.

On the other hand, a red personality would also tend to be kind of proud, insensitive, impatient, critical. And that matches, by the way, if you want the Greeks, that's the choleric. For the Greeks, the melancholic matches what's known as the beaver temperament, or blue. That is, are we getting the job done yet, if you want a question? The beaver tends to be loyal and honest and hardworking, diligent, but also a bit perfectionistic, sometimes judgmental of others, and even self-righteous.

Now, the Greek phlegmatic would correspond to the golden retriever, or the white category. Are we all getting along, is the question. Are we all getting along? The white, or with retrievers, tend to be tolerant, relaxed, patient, cooperative. But on the negative, somewhat dependent, perhaps fickle, and even in some cases lazy.

Now, the sanguine, that's the... I know... I have trouble keeping track of the different fluids. I know sanguine means blood. That matches the otter, or yellow. That is, the question for those are, are we having fun yet? Otters tend to be accepting, friendly, forgiving, trusting.

But also, sometimes irresponsible, self-centered, and even sometimes dealing with other people obnoxious, because of not noticing their needs. Now, those are the four broad categories. I like the fact most modern studies admit that a lot of people are a mix of two of them. Some people even three or four, but usually you're in one, or you have one dominant in some of another. And they say, we're born with these traits.

They affect our temperament. They work to control, like I said, how we perceive emotions and how we process thought. So a person who has traits strongly in one of these categories could very easily misunderstand someone in another category. Because you expect everyone's like me. Aren't we all red today? Well, we're not.

And there's where I say, say you're a person with a yellow or a retriever personality as assigned to a work group. They're very likely to immediately go around and start striking up conversations, try to get to know people, make work fun. Whereas if there's a red lion in the group, he's going to keep shutting down these conversations. You're stopping the work from getting done. Who would find this yellow otter personality to be very annoying? Did I say retriever earlier? I meant otter. I hope you're not taking too close notes on this. And of course, the otter would look at the lion saying, well, who's the self-righteous blowhard? He's being rude and he's ruining the group dynamic. As I said, they're both doing what comes naturally, think they're doing what's for the good of the group, but they misunderstand each other. Now, I could try to invent imaginary scenarios for all the other groups, and I'd probably just end up offending a lot of people.

I was taking a risk with this one, so instead I'll reveal a little bit about myself. When we took the quiz, I learned that I was almost evenly divided between red and blue, slightly more blue than red, which made me a beaver-lion hybrid, which that's an interesting visual to me. But when I read about the traits of someone that was a mix of those categories, I thought, that fits me. I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist. I do have some leadership skills, but sometimes can be overly demanding or too quick to correct. And I sometimes have a tendency to be moody or to feel sorry for myself. That's a red-blue combination. Although I like the fact that one minister tried to identify characters from the Bible that fit each of these, and they said the Apostle Paul was probably a red-blue combination. So if I can be like Paul, that's not all bad. But notice, there's good and bad in any temperament, or strengths and weaknesses, I should say. Not necessarily good and bad, but strengths and weaknesses. Now, when we did this, it's interesting. Sue and I had almost the exact same mix. I think she was a bit more red than blue, and I was a bit more blue than red, but we both had those. And not surprisingly, if I remember the group that was there when we did this, we were the only ones that were in our 30s when we got married. So maybe, you know, we found someone that matched our own temperament before we married, where people in their 20s might, you know, they might match up with someone that's not the same temperament. Now, the good thing is, you don't have to be an exact match to have a perfectly happy and successful marriage. That really doesn't have much to do with it. Well, it might have somewhat to do with it. Now, Sue and I being a good match means we understand each other most of the time, but it also means we might misunderstand any one of you, both of us, at the same time. Now, a lot of times it's good for a minister and his wife to be able to perceive things differently, so if I'm totally wrong-headed, she could say, Honey, honey, think of it this way, and I go, oh! So we don't have that advantage. Where was I going with this? Oh, I wanted to move on. There's one other slightly different personality analysis that I think is worth mentioning. I knew this. I told someone earlier today, this sermon could either be two hours or 40 minutes, depending on how I break it down. I'll try not to go two hours, but there's another different type of personality breakdown that was introduced by David Kiersy and Marilyn Bates. In 1978, they published a book called Please Understand Me. Now, rather than have the four basic categories, what this one does is it sets up four different continuums, and they have testing to see where you fall in these continuums. It could be between introverted and extroverted, and anywhere in between, between what they call intuitive and sensing, and where do you fall. Feeling or thinking, and then judging or perceiving, and then depending on where you fall, which side you fall more on for each of these, they would give you a four-letter identification, and then they could analyze it. If you do a test on someone, you could find a lot of their temperament.

When I did the test, I came out to be an ISTJ, introvert sensing, thinking, judging. And to me, that's the right way to be. Well, isn't everybody an ISTJ? Well, it turns out, no! Many of you are not ISTJs. And I learned that, partly at the same time I took the test, this is when I was down at Texas at A&M, one of my roommates was the exact opposite of me in almost every one of them.

He was an ENF something, because he had a good friend who they called each other NFs, and they saw the world in the same way. And a lot of the way they saw it, I thought, was just ridiculous.

So I'm not going to go into that, but I will say, my friend and I, we got along very well. We were good roommates, but we never did get to be real close buddies, because we were different personalities. I thought of him as more of an artist type, and he had a lot of friends, and those were good things.

I was envious of him and some of his traits.

And I'm not going to be able to break down and discuss all of these, but I will mention the continuum that I found to be the most revealing for me was that between introvert and extrovert.

Because I always thought, well, introvert means shy, and extrovert means you make friends real easy. And it turns out, they weren't describing it as meaning that. What it means is, how does dealing with other people affect you? If you're an extrovert, the more you're interacting with people, the more energetic you feel, and it's great, and you want to keep it up. But if you're an introvert, interacting with people drains your energy, and sooner or later you're going to need to withdraw and have some alone time to recharge your batteries. Whereas an extrovert, if he has too much alone time, he gets depressed and sad, I've got to be around people to recharge my batteries. It's very important to understand those differences.

As I said, looking at the test that I took and then seeing the description, I'm strongly on the introvert side. And I've told people that, I say, you can't be an introvert. Look at the things you like to do. Well, I do like being with people. But, and you might have seen this, after a double Sabbath, an hour or so after service, I might be looking like this, you know? Because I like talking with all of you, but it does sap my energy somewhat. So I'm not as likely to want to go to a party or a cookout afterwards. I might want to go home and sit and not talk to anybody. And neither one is good or bad, it's just different. And an introvert shouldn't be upset that an extrovert wants to have more time with people and vice versa.

Now, yeah, moving on. Considering all this stuff, all these different temperaments, generations, learning styles, what does it mean for us as Christians?

Well, I want to give us two main goals to take out of this. Now, you might think, shouldn't you have mentioned two main goals back in your introduction? But my main goal overall for the sermon is to understand the differences and to use those. For ourselves, in understanding this is, first, understand and improve yourself. Look at yourself and try to figure out where you are so that you can emphasize the strengths and de-emphasize the weaknesses. Let's go to 2 Corinthians 5. 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 17. So I'll mention, we were born with our temperaments, but God's Spirit allows us to strive to become better than what we were born with. We can improve everything about ourselves, even the things that scientists say we can't. 2 Corinthians 5, 17, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, that means if you're a Christian, you have God's Spirit in you, he has a new creation. In some ways, you get to start new, start rebuilding yourself. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. And if you can turn over a few pages to Philippians 2. Philippians 2 and verse 5. This is a very simple verse, but I want to look at another one here. What should we do with this information? Let this mind be within you, which was also in Christ Jesus. How your mind works, try to think more like Jesus Christ did. Now, as I said, he understood all these differences, and he could do what Paul said he was trying to do. Be all things to all people.

We will naturally have mostly the traits from one personality type. Whether it be red, blue, yellow, white, or maybe a combination. So we're going to have certain strengths and weaknesses. But with the power of God's Spirit, we can emphasize our strengths and try to build the strengths even from the other personality types. And we can try to squalch the weaknesses that we have naturally. And so we look here in Philippians 2, if we read verse 3.

The way we should look at this and how we look at others. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit. But in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than himself. Realize people are not usually trying to be difficult. They aren't stupid or rebellious or deliberately rude. They might just perceive things a little differently. They might think differently. So knowing that, let each of you look out not for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. We need to take that into account when we deal with members of the body of Christ. Remember the story from Robin Hood. God loves wondrous variety. And I said, He must. Why would He have created all of it? And He loves wondrous variety in His church. He called a great variety of people into it. Let's go back to 1 Corinthians 12.

1 Corinthians 12 and verse 12. As I said, God has chosen people from all different backgrounds and types to be here. He could have said, I only want lions. Or, I only want beavers. But He didn't. They're all represented. Paul says, For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews, Greeks, slaves, or free. He could have said, whether otters or lions, male or female, visual learners or kinesthetics.

And whatever other categories I mentioned. For in fact, the body is not one member, but many. If the foot should say, well, I'm not a hand, so I'm not of the body, is it not of the body? Of course not. If the eye should say, because I'm not an eye, or if the ear should say, because I'm not an eye, I'm not of the body. Is it not of the body? Well, if the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing?

And if the whole body were extroverts, we would be lacking introverts. If the whole body were blue personality types, we would be lacking the white and yellow and so on. But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body as He pleased.

It's God's choice who He puts into the church. So we shouldn't just grudgingly put up with people. We should be glad. And we should work diligently at understanding and loving one another, because that's what God wants. Let's look over to verse 25. There should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it.

Or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ and members individually. That's much more poetic, but Paul could have said, we're stuck with one another. Let's make the best of it. And that means growing attached to one another, even though sometimes it could seem a little uncomfortable. Let's go over to Ephesians 4. And I said, I don't want to portray it as, you're stuck together, you know, it's really uncomfortable, you hate each other.

No, there is good and beauty in that, and we should appreciate that. Ephesians 4, in the first verse, I therefore, prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long suffering, bearing one another in love, which, as I said, could be saying, put up with each other because you love each other, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There's one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling.

Let's look across the page to verse 15. Speaking the truth in love, may grow up into all things unto him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, and causes growth of the body, for the edifying of itself and love.

Every part is supplying something that helps grow. It's interesting, just think, God might have called someone in the church who's very different from you for the sake of helping you develop and grow. Or he might have put me in the church for the sake of... Well, hopefully I am helping you to develop and grow, but I was saying, in the cases where I rub you the wrong way, or say things that seem wrong... Not wrong, I hope, but seem a little out there, maybe it's to help you grow and stretch and see things in a different way.

But as I said, I'm not saying that everything is okay. Please remember, there is good and bad, there is right and wrong. I'm not saying we tolerate all things equally the way political correctness would say. But we should say, I want to take this and say, one of the ways that we will build unity is to spend time together. It's good for us to be together.

I'm bringing this up partly because all of us have been around a long time, we would look and say, we don't spend as much time together as we used to in the church. And that's something, maybe we could find ways to spend a little bit more. Now, I'm a historian, so I know it's not just because of the church, or it's not just in the church. Society and culture around us have been changing, and we're a part of that culture in society. You may not have heard of this, but about ten years or so ago, a book came out that really shook the social sciences called Bowling Alone.

It was a book looking at American society and saying, you know, a lot of people, and they use this as one example, are going to bowling alleys now and just one person running a lane in bowling. They like to bowl. But what happened to the bowling leagues? People used to be involved in bowling leagues and other group activities that aren't common anymore.

American society is changing, and the church is changing, too. Now, we have to realize that there are different demands and circumstances. We might not be able to be the way we were back in the 60s or 70s, when there were a lot of activities and everybody came to every single thing. But it'd be good for us to work at maybe being together and coming to the activities we do have, and trying to do it by choice, when we have a choice, having that natural inclination to spend more time with our spiritual brethren.

Let's turn to Romans 12. Romans 12 and verse 10. I want to take something that Paul said and maybe use it slightly different than he intended. Romans 12 and verse 10, he said, Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love and honor, giving preference to one another. Giving preference to one another. And that's why I say, maybe we should try to make a point to prefer spending time with our spiritual brethren when we have an opportunity. Because it would be easy to find people who are not in God's church, who match our temperament and our generation, and we might be more comfortable with them.

But we all have a common calling into God's family. There's that old saying that says, you know, you can choose your friends, but you can't choose your relatives. Well, we're all spiritual relatives. We didn't get to choose who was here.

The Father chose that. But we can choose to get to know each other and love each other and try to appreciate those differences. So that's... and by the way, Mr. Beletto, if you're looking for a title, I call it, preferring the brethren. We can try to prefer the brethren. Not that we have to spend every minute of every day together, but it's good for us to remember. You know, when we have activities, let's try to be here.

And I hope this look at how different people can be helps us to understand each other and ourselves a little bit better. Now, I know there are many, many more ways to analyze and understand the tremendous variety that God's built into mankind and also in the church. But hopefully even this little survey of the different ways helps make some of the things clear. That we need to accept that other people see and feel things differently. And they're not always trying to be difficult or obtuse, even though I know sometimes I seem difficult and obtuse.

But I might just be seeing things differently than you do, so bear with me. And we need to realize we can't deal with all people in just one way. Jesus Christ set a great example. Remember Mary and Martha. I think that was written down for a reason, and there are other cases. Look at how he treated the Apostle Peter and how he treated doubting Thomas. There's a point where he told Peter, Get behind me, Satan! Smacked him up, so he didn't smack him upside the head, but verbally. Whereas with Thomas, he said, Thomas, hey, poke at my hand and fingers. Look at my side. Don't be unbelieving anymore, but believe.

That wasn't a get behind me, Satan. So he dealt with different people differently. And knowing this, following Jesus Christ's example, let's try to prefer one another. And I want to set the lead in this, in my enthusiasm, in trying, as a pastor, to make sure we have a good balance of activities.

Because some of us like some things more than others. Some people love church picnics, some people don't love picnics as much. Some love overnights watching movies, some are not so okay with that. Some want to play softball, and some want to go to summer camp. There's stuff for all of us. God loves wondrous variety. So let's try to be like Him. Let's work to love that wondrous variety among our spiritual brethren.