I wrote yesterday about the Biblical David’s encounter with Goliath, a day which started with him delivering the cheese.

Being an airline pilot is largely a routine job describable as “hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.” It’s a routine job until it’s not. By now you’ve no doubt seen the amazing story of the Indian pilot Smit Machchhar who was attacked by his co-pilot while on a Flydubai flight to Israel.

I’m sure when Smit went to work that morning, he was envisioning yet another routine day. We take off, we fly to our destination, we land. Although not all his flights had gone that way. The Wall Street Journal piece published October 2 starts this way…

As an aviator, Smit Machchhar had piloted through an in-flight birth, turbulent monsoon skies and a high-wire landing in Greece that stretched his skills to the limit.

…and continues:

On Wednesday, the 38-year-old Indian pilot faced a midair incident of a completely different sort: a violent stabbing attack from within the cockpit.

Captain Machchhar fought off his attacker while in charge of a FlyDubai Boeing 737 MAX 8 passenger jet to Tel Aviv, apparently managing to alert air-traffic control, open the cockpit door and allow passengers and crew to rescue the plane from a petrifying plunge.

A fellow pilot praised his character and assessed his actions:

Captain Teena Goswami, who worked with Machchhar at SpiceJet, first met him in 2019 and remembered him as a calm, humble captain who treated junior pilots with respect.

Pilots are trained to handle pressure, she said, but in an extreme situation people can freeze or surrender. Machchhar, despite being attacked and dealing with an aircraft that was losing altitude, had the presence of mind to open the cockpit door, make an announcement over the public-address system and call for help, she said.

“What he did was…I think that saved everything,” Goswami said. She described him as “very coolheaded, very calm” and said colleagues generally looked forward to flying with him.

There was a time Machchhar didn’t know if he would survive. He directed the pilot who had taken over the plane to land as soon as possible.

As he lay bleeding in the MAX 8’s galley, Machchhar spoke about his children and asked the dentist by his side if he could save him...[the dentist] told him, ‘God is with you, pray. Everything will be OK. We are with you.’”

The captain was just “delivering the cheese” until he was called upon to save his own life and the lives of 170 passengers.

Some went out on the sea in ships; they were merchants on the mighty waters. They saw the works of the LORD, his wonderful deeds in the deep. For he spoke and stirred up a tempest that lifted high the waves. They mounted up to the heavens and went down to the depths; in their peril their courage melted away. They reeled and staggered like drunkards; they were at their wits’ end.

Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress. He stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves of the sea were hushed. They were glad when it grew calm, and he guided them to their desired haven. Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for mankind. (Psalm 107.23 – 31, ESV)

I go to Facebook only when I get a notification that one of my friends has posted something. While there, I scroll down “a little,” and every now and then find something interesting. The other day I saw a post by “Farmer Girl” that’s too good not to share. I don’t know who she is, but you can look her up on Facebook for yourself if you want.

Here is the point she made from the story of David and Goliath. I’m embarrassed I haven’t seen this for myself, nor have I heard it mentioned in a sermon. (You can read the whole story for yourself in 1 Samuel 17.)

She starts this way:

I feel like we have done David and Goliath a slight disservice by leaving out one extremely important detail when we tell this story.

The cheese.

Because David did not wake up that morning, stretch, look toward the horizon, and think, “Seems like a good day to fight a giant.” He was not marching off to war with dramatic music playing in the background. He was not even technically part of Saul’s army. David was tending his father’s sheep, and his dad gave him what was basically an ancient grocery delivery assignment. “Take for your brothers an ephah of this parched grain, and these ten loaves, and carry them quickly to the camp to your brothers. Also take these ten cheeses to the commander of their thousand.” That is 1 Samuel 17:17–18 in the ESV. Ten cheeses. One of the most famous giant-slaying stories in human history begins because Jesse apparently needed someone to deliver dairy products.

I just need us to appreciate this properly. David leaves home carrying grain, bread, and cheese. His assignment is essentially: Feed your brothers, give the commander his cheese, find out how everyone is doing, and come home. Seems straightforward. There is absolutely nothing in those instructions about engaging in single combat with an enormous Philistine warrior who has spent forty days terrifying the Israelite army. There is no “and while you’re there, could you deal with Goliath?” Jesse did not hand David ten cheeses, five stones, and a permission slip for giant removal. David was simply doing what his father asked him to do.

She tells the story with the usual lessons about God being bigger than Goliath and ends this way:

…we love looking backward at stories like this. We know David becomes king. We know Goliath falls. We know David becomes one of the biggest names in the Bible. David walking toward Goliath feels like a huge, defining moment because we already know the rest of the story.

But David didn’t know the rest of the story when he left home that morning.

As far as he knew, he was delivering cheese.

That gets me.

We spend so much time looking for the enormous thing God wants us to do that sometimes we underestimate the ordinary thing He has already put in front of us. We want the calling written across the sky. We want God to explain where this road is going before we agree to walk it. We want to know why we are at this job, why we met this person, why plans changed, why we are being asked to do something that seems completely insignificant, and how any of it could possibly matter.

Meanwhile, sometimes God just says, take the cheese.

Do the ordinary thing in front of you. Be faithful where you are. Show up. Take care of what He has already given you. You may have absolutely no idea what God is positioning you for while you are doing it.

David didn’t leave home looking for Goliath.

He left home carrying ten cheeses.

The giant was waiting at the end of an ordinary act of obedience.

And maybe that is something we need to remember when life feels painfully ordinary. You do not have to see the battlefield from where you are standing. You do not have to understand why this particular assignment matters. You do not have to know what God is doing three steps from now.

You just have to be faithful with the step He put in front of you.

Sometimes that step looks like facing a giant.

And sometimes it looks like carrying the cheese.

But the same God is already at the end of both.

That’s a good word. “Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress…” when he was called (Judges 6.11, 12). Elisha was plowing a field (1 Kings 19.19 – 21). The shepherds were just tending sheep as they always did when the angel appeared to them (Luke 2). Simon Peter was fishing (Luke 5.2 – 11). We never know when God will call us or use us…

One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?” (John 6.8, 9, ESV)

I wrote recently that with respect to eschatology (the study of the end times), there’s a lot we just don’t know.

One reason prophecy is sometimes hard to figure out is that the prophet (sometimes unknowingly) refers to two or more things at once. For example, have you read this in Matthew’s gospel about the child Jesus going to Egypt and returning?

Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.” (Matthew 2.13 – 15, ESV)

What prophet said, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”? And in what context?

Answer, Hosea!

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. (Hosea 11.1, ESV)

And in Hosea, the text couldn’t be clearer that God was talking about the literal nation Israel and their exodus from slavery:

The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols.

Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them.(Hosea 11.2 – 4, ESV)

So Hosea 11.1, “out of Egypt I called my son,” has a double meaning – past and future. Who would know? And how do we know what other prophetic texts are referring to? How many events? Past to us but future to the prophet? Etc., etc.

Let’s be obedient to what we know…

The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. (Deuteronomy 29.29, ESV)

Hosea challenges Israel with a farming metaphor, beginning with the positive:

Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you. (Hosea 10.12, ESV)

“Sow righteousness…” And you can’t sow (I’m told) without breaking up the ground first. “Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the LORD.” Repentance, anyone?

But if you don’t?

You have plowed iniquity; you have reaped injustice; you have eaten the fruit of lies. Because you have trusted in your own way and in the multitude of your warriors, therefore the tumult of war shall arise among your people, and all your fortresses shall be destroyed… (Hosea 10.13, 14, ESV)

Instead of sowing righteousness and reaping love, Israel sowed iniquity and reaped injustice. Their trust was “in their own way” AND in their military might.

Sound familiar? And there’s a “therefore:”

“…the tumult of war…and all your fortresses shall be destroyed…”

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. (Galatians 6.7, 8, ESV)

Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God. (Psalm 20.7, ESV)

On September 19, I published ChatGPT on my assessment of my experience with that expression of AI. I concluded:

Bottom Line: use AIs with care.

Since then, I’ve read multiple articles, some positive, some apocalyptic, some cautioning the same issue that gave me pause: ChatGPT is pretending to be human. I’ve talked with people who use the technology productively. I intend to write something more comprehensive next week, but I’m still sorting it all out.

In the meantime, here’s something from Hosea that may apply. What do you think?

For it is from Israel; a craftsman made it; it is not God...For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind… (Hosea 8.5 – 7, ESV)

Are we sowing the wind with AI, and will we reap the whirlwind?

My friend Pastor James Conley from Delta, Colorado, retired in July from First Baptist Church after more than 30 years of ministry there. At the Rocky Mountain American Baptist Gathering a few weeks ago, he shared some lessons learned.

First, one of his seminary professors shared with him early in his ministry five things the professor would have done differently:

1. Spend more time with my family.

2. Develop a deeper prayer life much earlier.

3. Study and prepare better messages.

4. I would not take myself so seriously.

5. I would be more understanding and patient with the church the Lord placed in my care.

A good list. James added “Four things that will sideline your serve:”

#1 SLOTH (laziness) Proverbs 19:15, 26:14; 2 Thessalonians. 3:11-12.

#2 SILVER (money) Ecclesiastes 5:10; 1 Timothy 6:10.

#3 SEX (Porn/adultery) 1 Corinthians 6:18-20; Ephesians. 5:3; 1 Peter 2:11.

#4 SELF (flesh) 2 Timothy 3:1-4; Galatians 5:13.

Another good list, which is remarkably the same (3 out of 4) that my friend Pastor Aaron Dorman in Estes Park shared with me in August:

1. Money
2. Sex
3. Pride
4. Distraction (that is, stick with the gospel, not politics)

Thank you, my brothers for your instruction AND your example.

So I always take pains to have a clear conscience toward both God and man. – Paul, Acts 24.16, ESV

PS “Retired” James is off to North Platte, Nebraska, to be interim pastor of a church there.

A friend wrote a few days ago to ask why I’m still involved in mission (evangelism and disciple-making) at my advanced age.

By the way, I just got a name tag from my church with the word “octogenarian” next to my name! They were honoring all of us born in 1946, the first year of the baby boomers. For some reason “octogenarian” makes me feel older than saying, “I turn 80 in December.”

So why am I still involved in relational disciple-making?

• It’s still the only form of ministry that makes sense.
• It can be done by anyone. I’ve written on this before, as in “Instant Participation, Instant Success” and “Epoxy and Disciple-making.”
• It can be done at any age. Jim Downing started doing Bible study with TV news anchor, Dianne Derby, when he was 99 years old. She spoke at his 100^th birthday celebration in 2013, and at his memorial in 2018. Her book Two Hundred Tuesdays is worth the read.

Jim Downing with Dianne Derby at his 100th birthday celebration.

• If I can leave behind a few men to carry on the ministry and help others do the same, I will have done something. I’m meeting with two men, leading them through Every Man a Warrior. They will both be leaders. One has already had serious discussions with men’s ministry leaders at a large church on starting Every Man a Warrior.
• I don’t think we’re supposed to quit. I hope to die with appointments on my calendar. “Sorry, Bob won’t be able to make lunch today…”

And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. (2 Timothy 2.2, NIV)

We just spent a few days at the world-class Colorado Springs Broadmoor Hotel celebrating our 58th anniversary. The hotel was built in 1919 by Spencer Penrose. His wife, Julie, built a small chapel, named after her granddaughter. Pauline Chapel became part of the Roman Catholic diocese but by the early 2000s, it was no longer in use.

Philip Anschutz, a strong believer who lives in Denver, bought the Broadmoor in November 2011, under the condition that he could have access to Pauline Chapel. He wanted to offer weekly Sunday services there for the guests. His friend Peb Jackson (Peb’s father was called “Rock,” and Peb was just a “pebble.” You can’t make this stuff up.) was very well connected and recruited local pastors and leaders of local Christian organizations to preach the services. One of the pastors was our former pastor, John Stevens, who had retired. They also needed pianists, so John called me. I played for the first three services beginning in June 2012. The services continue today with a core of Broadmoor neighbors who consider it their ministry to serve the guests who attend.

I write that to say I met Mr. Anschutz at one of those services and talked with him briefly. It makes for a good story, one that I shared on a walking tour while we were guests earlier this month.

Here’s the point of the blog. Over our stay, at least two Broadmoor employees spoke highly of Philip Anschutz. At least one talked about his humility. I learned that he doesn’t have a special room when he stays there. He wants the best rooms reserved for guests. Previously, an employee told me that he often gets up in the wee hours, gets a couple dozen doughnuts, and visits employees on duty to thank them for their service.

Humble, serving doughnuts to employees on the midnight shift, aren’t typical characteristics of the wealthy. And Philip Anschutz is wealthy – the richest man in Colorado according to Forbes Magazine as reported in the Denver Post:

Philip Anschutz remains Colorado’s wealthiest resident with an estimated net worth of $19.3 billion, which ranked him the 60th highest in the U.S. and 143rd in the world. Anschutz built on early successes in oil and gas to purchase railroads, including the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad and Southern Pacific Railroad, and leveraged that investment to build a national fiber optic network, Qwest Communications.

Railroad ownership also opened the door to highly valuable land holdings in city centers. Anschutz Entertainment now owns more than 70 arena and concert venues around the globe, including Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.

A big soccer fan, Anschutz cofounded Major League Soccer. He has significant stakes in the LA Galaxy, as well as the city’s hockey franchise, the LA Kings. Closer to home, Anschutz owns the Broadmoor Hotel and the Gazette newspapers in Denver and Colorado Springs.

Anschutz’s holdings have benefited from a surge in the value of entertainment assets and sports franchises, driving a 78% increase in his net worth since 2023. – Denver Post, September 16, 2026

Mr. Anschutz joyfully practices Paul’s instructions to Timothy regarding the wealthy:

Teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable. Their trust should be in God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment. Tell them to use their money to do good. They should be rich in good works and generous to those in need, always being ready to share with others. By doing this they will be storing up their treasure as a good foundation for the future so that they may experience true life. (1 Timothy 6.17 – 19, NIV)

Let’s remember as we continue through Hosea and the rest of the “minor” prophets (so-called only because the books are shorter) that the purpose of prophecy is not so much to foretell the future but to change how we live today. And we do that by identifying similarities between the people’s behaviors then and ours today.

Case in point, Hosea’s diagnosis in chapter 7:

Woe to them, for they have strayed from me! Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against me! I would redeem them, but they speak lies against me. They do not cry to me from the heart, but they wail upon their beds; for grain and wine they gash themselves; they rebel against me. (Hosea 7.13, 14, ESV)

They pray but only for material things while they rebel against God. James called out the same behavior:

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (James 4.1 – 4, ESV)

We continue through Hosea where chapter 6 has some useful lessons for us all. The opening sounds good…

“Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.

Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.” (Hosea 6.1 – 3, ESV)

It appears to be a call for revival from the people themselves: “Come let us return to the LORD…let us know; let us press on to know the LORD…” After all, “he will come to us as the…spring rains that water the earth.”

Nice try. Here’s is God’s response:

What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away. Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light. (Hosea 6.4, 5, ESV)

Your love is transient. Therefore, “I have hewn them by the prophets… slain them by the words of my mouth.” Huh? Reminds me of recalcitrant military personnel. Say I have a guy who doesn’t like to keep his hair in regs. The regs are there; he just ignores them. But if I give him a direct order, and he doesn’t do it, I have “…slain him by the words of my mouth.” He’s not only guilty of ignoring written haircut regulations, he has violated a direct order from his commanding officer. Much more serious.

What does God want? Words? Ritual? Or relationship with him?

For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. (Hosea 6.6, ESV)

I desire love, not sacrifice. Knowing God, not burnt offerings.

What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.

When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations— I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.

When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause. (Isaiah 1.11 – 17, ESV)