Matthew 9 & 10
"Cheer up, son. I forgive your sins." Why this gossipy whispering?
Eating with disreputable characters, acting cozy with riffraff and crooks.
"Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? Go figure out what this Scripture means: 'I'm after mercy, not religion.' I'm here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders."
"This is Kingdom come!"
"If I can just put a finger on his robe, I'll get well."
Jesus said to her, "Courage, daughter. You took a risk of faith, and now you're well."
When Jesus had gotten rid of the crowd, he went in, took the girl's hand, and pulled her to her feet-alive.
"Do you really believe I can do this?" Jesus asked. He touched their eyes and said, "Become what you believe." Become what you believe. What an awesome charge, call, and invitation.
Jesus taught, reported kingdom news, healed bruised and hurt lives. His heart broke. "What a huge harvest! How few workers! On your knees and pray for harvest hands!" The perennial struggle for enough servant volunteers...
Jesus gave disciples the power to kick out evil spirits and to care for bruised and hurt lives.
"Don't begin by traveling to some far-off place to convert unbelievers. And don't try to be dramatic by tackling some public enemy. Go to the lost, confused people right here in the neighborhood. Tell them that the kingdom is here. Bring health to the sick. Raise the dead. Touch the untouchables. Kick out the demons. You have been treated generously, so live generously...You are the equipment, and all you need to keep that going is three meals a day. Travel light."
"Stay alert. This is hazardous work I'm assigning you. You're going to be like sheep running through a wolf pack, so don't call attention to yourselves. Be as cunning as a snake, inoffensive as a dove. Don't be naive. Some people will impugn your motives, others will smear your reputation-just because you believe in me. "
"When people realize it is the living God you are presenting and not some idol that makes them feel good, they are going to turn on you, even people in your own family. There is great irony here: proclaiming so much love, experiencing so much hate! But don't quit. Don't cave in. It is all well worth it in the end."
"Don't be bluffed into silence by threats of bullies. There's nothing they can do to your soul, your core being. Save your fear for God, who holds your entire life-body and soul-in his hands."
(EP)"Three times Jesus tells his disciples not to be afraid. We know these words are for us, too. If we're honest, we know the words demand that we grow up, that we be fully human before God, and that most folks won't be enthusiastic about it. We know we're called to be disciples, but the opposition unnerves us. Jesus still says, "Don't be afraid. We're afraid we're not up to the challenge of the love we're called to give, the suffering we're expected to endure, the opposition we're forced to face. Our fears close us in. There's so much to see, so many people to love, such a marvelous Lord to worship, and nothing to fear."
"Stand up for me against world opinion and I'll stand up for you before my Father in heaven. If you turn tail and run, do you think I'll cover for you?"
"If you don't go all the way with me, through thick and thin, you don't deserve me. If your first concern is to look after yourself, you'll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you'll find both yourself and me."
"We are intimately linked in this harvest work. Anyone who accepts what you do, accepts me, the One who sent you. Anyone who accepts what I do accepts my Father, who sent me. Accepting a messenger of God is as good as being God's messenger. Accepting someone's help is as good as giving someone help. This is large work I've called you into, but don't be overwhelmed by it. It's best to start small. Give a cup of cool water to someone who is thirsty, for instance. The smallest act of giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice. You won't lose out on a thing."
Those last 3 verses, 10:4-42. I never noticed before the equality, if you will, of giving and receiving. We must be able to receive from others, otherwise, we put ourselves in God's place, the One who is the first giver. So my ability to both give and receive affect my following Jesus and my faithfulness. That may be stretching the context a bit as the whole passage/pericope deals with the disciples as traveling missionaries, going literally from house to house...I still wonder back to my first thought, realizing the historical context...hmmm.
Acts 13-15
"They commissioned them. In that circle of intensity and obedience of fasting and praying, they laid hands on their heads and sent them off."
Not all of the believers became missionaries. Some of them did. We must be in one group or the other: the ones who will go and be sent, or the ones who after serious prayer will lay hands on those sent and send them.
Dr. Know it all was as crooked as a corkscrew. Paul calls out the good doctor and his less than honorable deeds, and the Doc goes blind.
Paul tells the story, fulfilling the prophets through Jesus. God raised Jesus from the dead...for good, no going back to that rot and decay.
"On account of the resurrection of Jesus the forgiveness of your sins can be promised. He accomplishes, in those who believe, everything that the Law of Moses could never make good on. But everyone who believes in this raised-up Jesus is declared good and right and whole before God." Practically the whole city showed up for the next message...
"It was required that God's word be spoken first of all to you, the Jews. But seeing that you want no part of it-you've made it quite clear that you have no taste or inclination for eternal life-the door is open to all the outsiders. And we're on our way through it, following orders, doing what God commanded."
"The non-Jewish outsiders could hardly believe their good fortune. All who were marked out for real life put their trust in God-they honored God's Word by receiving that life. And this message of salvation spread like wildfire throughout the land."
"Some of the Jews convinced the most respected women and leading men of the town that their precious way of life was about to be destroyed. Alarmed, they turned on Paul and Barnabas and forced them to leave. Paul and Barnabas shrugged their shoulders and went on to the next town, Iconium, brimming with joy and the Holy Spirit, two happy disciples."
"Unbelieving Jews worked up a whispering campaign, sowing mistrust and suspicion in the minds of the people in the street."
But there was a split in public opinion--some siding with the Jews and some with the apostles.
"Ripe for God's work, ready to believe." Paul saw this in the man. Have you ever seen this in anyone? Has anyone ever seen it in you?
"We're not gods! We are men just like you, and we're here to bring you the Message, to persuade you to abandon these silly god-superstitions and embrace God himself, the living God. We don't make God; God makes us, and all of this--sky, earth, sea, and everything in them."
God is among us in healing and salvation...in knitting back together things that are torn apart. God's blessings are both routine and not routing. God isn't limited to our imagination, nor our routine, nor to the common places of our lives. God is surprising and unexpected, yet never apart from the common and expected.
"Evidence of good beyond your doing."
"You have to circumcise pagan converts. You must make them keep the law of Moses."
"God, who can't be fooled by any pretense on our part but always knows a person's thoughts, gave them the Holy Spirit exactly as he gave him to us. He treated the outsiders exactly as he treated us, beginning at the very center of who they were and working with them from that center outward, cleaning up their lives as they trusted and believed him. So why are you trying to out-god God, loading these new believers down with rules that crushed our ancestors and crushed us, too? Don't we believe that we are saved because the Master Jesus amazingly and out of sheer generosity moved to save us just as he did those from beyond our nation? So what are we arguing about?... The silence deepened. James said, "Friends, listen. Simeon has told us the story of how God at the very outset made sure that racial outsiders were included...God has always known he would do this." "We're not going to unnecessarily burden non-Jewish people who turn to the Master. We'll write them a letter and tell them not to get involved in activities connected to idols, to guard the morality of sex and marriage, to not serve food offensive to Jewish Christians...basic wisdom from Moses."
That passage is one that for me so clearly indicates that the understanding of obedience to the Law of Moses changes...that the Word of God is indeed living. That doesn't mean we notice that in a reckless fashion, rather in an intentional, deliberate, prayerful, discerning manner, and that we do anticipate that God is still speaking to us.
(EP) "Everyone in the early church was agreed on what the Word of God said: that God had come in Christ to save men, to forgive them, and to give them a new life of love. But a division arose in the church over how that was to take place. One group said salvation in Christ had to be built on the foundation of the Law of Moses. Nothing could be lost or forgotten. It must all be incorporated and retained. The second group said that adnerance to the Law wasn't necessary for salvation. Christ himself was enough. He himself fulfilled the Laaw, and to accept him with your whole heart was all that mattered. A completely new beginning was made in Christ; in him all things were made new. to insist on keeping old laws and regulations was to deny the sufficiency of Christ. Salvation wasn't by works but by grace, the free gift of God.
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