Rev. Aubert V. Rose, Jr. said a number of things that have stuck with me, and that I've quoted from time to time. In my college days, he was associate Pastor to Dr. Charles Stanley at First Baptist, Atlanta. But he had grown up in Kentucky, with a lot of agricultural experience!
"Some stumps you pull up, and some stumps you plow around." I understood that from farm life... it can take a while for a tree stump to be rotted enough to pull up. But the application can be to an organization, or a co-worker, where it would just be too much trouble to deal with that issue or their stubborness, right now. Maybe next year, try it again.
"I feed in many pastures, but I give my own milk" .. back on the farm we had several pastures for the dairy cows, and you surely didn't want them getting into an onion patch or bitterweed!!! He used it in a sense of studying different commentaries and listening to different speakers, but his messages were from his own and the Lord's inspiration.
"Sometimes you have to get things spinning so fast in the Baptist Church that you'll sling some of them off." This means that some folks weren't ever going to be positively helpful, or might not ever bear spiritual fruit. Someday they'll just have to move elsewhere to ever be happy.
"Unfortunately, the Baptist church is too often in the red flannel long-handle underwear business, and ain't nobody placing any orders anymore!!" I took that to mean we could be irrelevant if we didn't watch out. In the church, or any organization, we can major on minors, and in so doing, be left behind.
There are cautions here, for sure. Better to use these for self-examination, that to use them for disregarding a brother in the faith!
