Filed under: Bible, Missional Living | Tags: Bible, Christianity, Christians, God, Grace, James 2, Jesus, Judgement, Love, mercy, Post-Christian, Spirituality
This might be beating a dead (or dying) horse, but here goes anyway.
As I was writing in my last post, I want to be known by what I do and what I am for. To often our society stereotypes and categorizes people and beliefs by what they are against: Republicans are against big government, Democrats are against the wealthy, Christians are against homosexuals, and reasonable people should be against any coffee shop with stores on every corner. OK maybe not that last one, but I think you get the point. Perhaps we define ourselves and other by what we are not because its easier to see what we hate in others then in ourselves, and by extension can say “I’ll never be/do that.” Yet the reality is, that all of us, when faced with the right circumstances are capable of the darkest evil. In my reading today I came across this thought in James 2.
“Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!”
Wow, mercy triumphs over judgement. I may be reading too much into that, but is it saying that rather then judging people by what they do or think, we are called to speak and act out of mercy?
And what is the law that gives freedom? As I understand scripture, it’s grace. The new law of Jesus is based on the fact that all of us are offered forgiveness that we do not deserve. That we all blow it and fall way short of what God created us to be. James seems to be reminding followers of Jesus that, as those who have been forgiven solely because of God’s love, we need to treat others the same way. How quickly do I forget. If anyone in the world should be agents of forgiveness, love, and reconciliation, it should be Christians who rest their entire faith and eternity on these things.
Perhaps that is what is bothering me the most. Rather then being know for what we (Christians) are against, we need to stand for what we are for. How much different would our world be, if, when people thought of Christians, they thought of the most loving, forgiving, inclusive, and creative people they knew. Maybe, it’s time for us to reframe our culture’s view of Christians. Maybe it’s time we take a stand for who we are. It can be done, but it can only be done by each of us living it out. What are we waiting for?
Filed under: Bible, Missional Church | Tags: Bible, Christianity, Hypocrisy, Jesus, Judgment, Religious Elite, Temptation
First some thoughts on the last set of verses. It’s so interesting to note that whenever Jesus speaks of judgment he is referring to either 1) a future judgment done by God on all that has been distorted from what God created His creation to be, or 2) a different kind of judgment referring specifically to religious leaders and institutions who claim to represent God but who have allowed their personal holiness and interpretation of Scripture to take them away from the people God loves (ie. sinners, prostitutes, and tax collectors). This type of judgment is usually laid out on the religious establishment because they have become more concerned with looking and feeling righteous than with grace and forgiveness of God. In last weeks account the religious leaders refused to see the act of healing the blind man as God’s work and eventually threw him out of their presence (removed him from fellowship in the Jewish religious community). But Jesus responds by not only seeking and comforting the man with new sight, but declaring judgment on the “blind” religious elite.
Sometimes I wonder how far we are from this today. Are we, by our attitudes, pride, and methods keeping people from experiencing the grace of God? How would Jesus respond to us and our religiosity? And how would we respond to Jesus (or do we respond to the Spirit) when/if He does something that makes us feel uncomfortable? Those are really hard questions, and it’s so easy to throw stones at others. But I need to ask them about myself, and continually allow Jesus to shake me from my comfortable spot on understanding, safety, and security.
So enough of that on to something fresh. We going to spend the next couple months looking at the words of Jesus in the gospel of Luke. Hopefully this will not only allow Him to shake us up, but provide a sense of connection and context to all we are learning. We’ll start at what has been describes as the crux of Luke’s message, a statement by Jesus about who He is and what He has come to do: Luke 4.
Luke 4:1-30
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.
The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone.”
The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours.”
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.”
The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. For it is written:
” ‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully;
they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”
Jesus answered, “It says: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”
When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. He taught in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.
He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked.
Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself! Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’ “
“I tell you the truth,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”
All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.
A couple things that stood out to me that I need to think about this week.
First, who led Jesus out to be tempted and who led Him back? How does that match up with how I understand the rest of Scripture?
Second, if Jesus sums up His own mission from that portion of Isaiah 61. What does that mean for us as His followers? Is that the kind of message I am living? And why didn’t Luke write down what else He spoke about that had all the people “amazed at the gracious words that came from His lips”?
I’m sure that only begins to scratch the surface of this passage and I’m equally sure that the Spirit will reveal different layers to all of us who spend time with this. I’d love to hear your answers to those questions and any other comments, questions, or insights you might have.
Here are a few other verses that seem to connect with these dots.
Filed under: Bible, Missional Church | Tags: Bible, Forgiveness, Grace, Hypocrisy, Judgement, Spirituality
Last week we had some great thoughts on forgiveness, judgment, and grace. It’s so freeing to see Jesus through fresh eyes. One of the things we’ve spent a little bit of time talking about on Sunday evenings the last 2 weeks has been different types of judgment (Thanks for pointing this out Omar). Is it OK for me to have a problem with the way some followers of Jesus represent God? How am I supposed to respond to this? If Jesus didn’t come to judge and I am sent the same way what do I do? I’ve really been thinking about this the last week, and just about fell off my chair when I read this “contradiction” in the Bible (gasp). So having said that what do we do with passages like this? I’d love to hear your thoughts:
John 9:24-41
A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. “Give glory to God,” they said. “We know this man is a sinner.
He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”
Then they asked him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”\
He answered, “I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?”
Then they hurled insults at him and said, “You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses!
We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from.”
The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
To this they replied, “You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!” And they threw him out.
Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
“Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.”
Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.”
Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.
Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”
Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?”
Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.
What!? For judgment He came into the world? Isn’t this exactly opposite what Jesus says in John 3 and 12? And yet to me it all makes sense.
Heres the rest of the story for context and some other “judgment” verses for you to add to this:
Before I spew my thoughts I’d love to hear yours. So hook it up and write it down.
Oh, one more thing. We are not meeting this Sunday evening for discussion (we’ll be out playing), so if your part of the actual Sunday gathering feel free to post your thoughts here and come hang out with us. If your a virtual part of our community we want your thoughts too even if your too far away to come play 
Next week I think we’re going to jump into Jesus’ words in the gospel of Luke and spend some time with that account of Jesus’ story. It should be fun.
Filed under: Bible, Missional Church | Tags: Bible, Forgiviness, Jesus, Judging Others, Missional Living, Parable, Spirituality
It seems clear that followers of Jesus are sent into the world the same way God sent Jesus into the world. John 3 says that Jesus was sent out of love, that He was sent to redeem, and that He was not sent to judge. I’m not totally sure if this is how most Christians see themselves, or if this is how others see them.
In Matthew 13 Jesus tells a very interesting parable about some weeds sown among some wheat. When His servants ask if they should pull up the weeds He tells them not to worry about it; when the time for harvest is right, His harvesters (the angels) will separate the weeds from the wheat and will be disposed of. A couple insights on this from Sunday evening: First the wheat and the weeds grow together in the field (the world). This is a given. No where does Jesus say the wheat is enclosed in a protected greenhouse with plenty of pesticides and herbicides. The whole point is that the wheat and the weeds grow together in the field. How opposite is this from the way many churches have isolated themselves from the evil influences of the world. Second, it’s impossible to tell the difference between the wheat and weeds until the harvest. Not only that, but Jesus says to wait on judging what is a weed because His servants might make a mistake. Oh if only we as Jesus-followers would take this to heart. Perhaps then we might be known by our love and the hope we profess rather then our judgmental attitudes and hypocritical condemnation.
Let’s spend some time looking at another of Jesus’ parables and how it relates to how we are called to live and act in our world:
Matthew 18:21-35
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?”
Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
“Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
“The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
“But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
“His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’
“But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.
“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”
What do you think the most unbelievable part of this parable would be for Jesus’ hearers? For us today? Which person in this parable do you think is most like Christians? Who does Jesus seem to be addressing this parable too? Does that add anything to our understanding of it?
Here are some other parts of Scripture that seem to connect with this:
Luke 6:37-42
John 20:19-23
Titus 3:3-8
I’d really love to hear your thoughts on what you think this means for followers of Jesus as we interact with God’s creation and the people God loves.
Filed under: Bible, Missional Church | Tags: Bible, God, Jesus, Missional Living, Spirituality
Each week I hope to post the Scriptures we will be discussing on Sunday evenings. Please feel free (or even obligated) to post some of your own thoughts here. If you are unable to be a part of our gathering on Sunday evenings please consider including your insights, questions, and comments here. Think of it as a virtual invitation into our discussion. All are welcome, and no point of view is excluded.
This past weekend we looked at the first part of what I think is one of the most interesting parts of Scripture, Jesus’ prayer in John 17. This week we are continuing that process as we discuss Jesus praying for His followers:
John 17:13-26
“I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.
My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
A few observations and questions jump out to me. Obviously, Jesus’ desire is that His followers remain in the world, but He makes a very interesting statement when He says “As You sent me into the world, I have sent them”. How was Jesus sent? And what the heck does it mean to be sanctified and why/how did Jesus do that to Himself?
Jesus also makes it pretty clear how His followers are to be know. How are we (His followers) doing with that? What can we do differently to be more know by our love, unity, and connection with Jesus?
Here are some additional Scriptures that really got me thinking about those questions (and a whole lot more). I’d love to read your comments on how they intersect (if at all) with Jesus’ prayer and how His followers are called to live. Don’t be shy, post a comment.
John 3:16-21
Matthew 5:13-16
John 12:44-50
Matthew 13:24-43
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
