"He Popped Up"
Almost everyone in the greater Cincinnati area is well acquainted with the expression "pop-up." In baseball it simply means the player has "pooped" so far as helping his team to score. It may or may not make any difference to the winning of any given game but, it never helps the player who has flopped by popping up. The awful part about it, for the player, in baseball is that he has to forfeit his turn, after so long a wait, when he pops up.
Our primary interest in the "pop-up" is not in baseball but rather in making use of the term in regard to religious teachers who are forever "popping up." They try so hard (we'll give them the benefit of the doubt), then when they get an opportunity to really take a swing for the Lord, all they can do is "pop-up." Then like the batter who throws his bat, they throw their Bibles and, for the most part, throw a fit (religious tantrum) showing their disorder and if not corrected, their eventual destruction. Their team, the church, may or may not lose the game, but that individual has not contributed anything to the score. The terrible shame in the church is that the same player is allowed to "pop-up" continually, regardless of the cost to the team. Over and over he is allowed to go to the plate and all he can do, when given the opportunity to "swing" for Jesus, is "pop-up."
It's high time that someone put the squeeze play on these "religious-littles" and then to see to it that some "well-trained-players" (good Bible teachers) are permitted to go to bat for the Lord. Especially is this needed in most of the churches at this time of religious unrest. We are no stronger than our teaching program and in too many instances the folk of any given church don't even know what the program is.
The "pop-up" players must be sent to the shower and instilled with new zeal or the church is going to be lost. "Ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." (2 Tim. 3:7)
— 4661 Cooper Road, Cincinnati, 42 Ohio