Realized I skipped over Matthew 12. Jesus is accused of black magic. Wasn't the first time; we've not seen the last time yet. "This is war, and there is no neutral ground. If you're not on my side, you're the enemy; if you're not helping, you're making things worse."
"The fruit tells you about the tree."
"It's your heart, not the dictionary that gives meaning to your words."
"Words are powerful. They can be your salvation or your damnation. Take them seriously."
"Teacher, we want to see your credentials. Give us some hard evidence that God is in this."
"When Jonah preached to them, they changed their lives. You've got one greater than Jonah and you squabble about 'proofs'."
"That's what this generation is like: You may think you have cleaned out the junk from your lives and gotten ready for God, but you weren't hospitable to my kingdom message, and now all the devils are moving back in."
Some of the accusations at the ruling elite in chapter 12 sting. Honestly, all too many of Jesus' words sting. There are moments when it "hurts so good," and moments when it just hurts.
"Obedience is thicker than blood. The person who obeys my heavenly Father's will is my brother and sister and mother."
13
Parable of the soil and seeds. Why do you tell stories? Stories create readiness. But if there's no readiness, any trace of receptivity soon disappears. Stories are to create readiness, to nudge the people toward receptive insight. I don't want to be a blockhead! I want to see, and hear. I want to be receptive, even when it hurts, even when the Word challenges my preconceived notions and worldview.
Do I take the Word into my heart, or does it lie on the surface? Or, have I been overly enthusiastic, and now the emotion is gone and I'm lifeless? Am I choked by worry and illusion, so strangled that nothing comes of It? Can I take in the Word and produce a harvest beyond my wildest dreams?
Weeds and wheat. Let them grow together until the harvest time. Small seed, big plant. Size of seed does not determine the harvest. A little yeast works through a large batch of dough.
EP: "The metaphors Jesus used for the life of ministry are frequently images of the single, the small, and the quiet, which have effects far in excess of their appearance: salt, leaven, seed. Our culture publicizes the opposite emphasis: the big, the multitudinous, the noisy. It is, then, a strategic necessity that people in ministry, especially pastors, ally themselves with the quiet, poised harpooners, and not leap, frenzied to the oars. There is far more need that we develop the skills of a harpooner than the muscles of the oarsman. It is far more biblical to learn quiet attentiveness before God than to exhaust ourselves in a flurry of activity."
"Ripe holy lives will mature and adorn the kingdom of their Father."
What is God's kingdom like to you?
"Every student well-trained in God's kingdom is like the owner of a general store who can put his hands on anything you need, old or new, exactly when you need it."
"A prophet is taken for granted in his hometown and his family." Jesus didn't do any miracles there because of their hostile indifference.
Hostile indifference. What does that look like today?
14
Herod kills John the Baptist.
Feeding 5000. "You give them supper."
Jesus by himself to pray...and sometimes it works, and sometimes he gets interrupted.
Peter walking on water. What have you thought that God could not save or rescue you from?
Healed by touching the hem of Jesus' coat.
Acts
"Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? Did you take God into your mind only, or did you also embrace God with your heart? Did God get inside you?" Well?
John's baptism of radical life change so that people would be ready to receive Jesus. Now, after the radical life change, you're ready for Jesus. Tongues. Necessary?
"Holy Spirit--church's way of talking about the life of God in humans. Wind, breath, sign of life in a person. Uncontainable. Alive in ways they'd never been. We're candidates for receiving the same Holy Spirit--and the same thing can happen to us: new life,new and overflowing life." EP
Paul had a few good months, then evil rumors began to be spread about the Christian way of life.
The touch did it--they were healed and whole.
"I know Jesus and I've heard of Paul, but who are you?"
The Word of the Master was now sovereign and prevailed in Ephesus.
Idols to Artemis. Business in jeopardy. Fear this Paul guy. Raise up the level of fear so that Paul might be stopped! "There is no excuse for what's happened today. We're putting our city in serious danger."
Gave constant encouragement, lifting their spirits and charging them with fresh hope.
Paul preached a young man to sleep. He fell out of a window and died. Paul brought him back to life. And then Paul kept talking.
..."urging Jews and Greeks alike to a radical life-change before God and an equally radical trust in our Master Jesus."
Compelled to go to Jerusalem. "What matters is to finish what God started: the job Master Jesus gave me of letting everyone I meet know all about this incredibly extravagant generosity of God....I've done my best for you, given you my all, held back nothing of God's will for you. Now it's up to you. Be on your toes--both for yourselves and your congregation of sheep. The Holy Spirit has put you in charge of these people--God's people they are--to guard and protect them. God himself thought they were worth dying for...Now I'm turning you over to God, our marvelous God whose gracious Word can make you into what God wants you to be and give you everything you could possibly need in this community of holy friends...In everything I've done, I have demonstrated to you how necessary it is to work on behalf of the weak and not exploit them. "
Apostle means one who is sent as one bears the ministry of Christ everywhere. Our nature isn't static, stationary. We ought to be apostolic--sent to reach others with the Gospel whether at distance geographically or emotionally.
Agabus prophesies that Paul will be tied up and handed over to godless unbelievers in Jerusalem. For Paul the issues isn't what they do to him, but what Jesus does through Paul's obedience. How does that kind of commitment feel? Is it attractive? Or repulsive?
Paul was beyond peer pressure. I want to live that way, with God so at my center. I don't want the good intentions of my friends to deflect me from the best intentions of God.
Paul is captured in Jerusalem, but given an opportunity to speak to the crowd...tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment