Thursday, July 7, 2005

Good Morning!

The new unit for this week is Unit 10 , The Centrality of Scripture

Focus Scripture for the Week: John 5:39

You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that testify on my behalf.

Today's topic: Mark 12:18-27

-- to put today's scripture in context, this event took place during Jesus' stay in Jerusalem the week leading up to the crucifixion. He was in the Temple teaching, and one group after another from the various Jewish sects were coming up to him with questions, trying to stump him and prove that he was not the son of God. The passage immediately prior to this question was the one about whether they should pay taxes to Caesar.

-- while not exactly on topic for our lesson, I think that it is interesting that these Jewish groups, faced with numerous examples of Jesus' extraordinary power from his miracles and healing, felt that the way they could prove that Jesus was not who he said he was by asking him really tough questions.

-- the lesson for us falls into the "what would Jesus do" area -- obviously, to answer their questions, in the context that his challengers would somewhat accept, Jesus had to know the scriptures very well. Now there is the question as to whether Jesus had to study the scriptures or already knew them, but the example is that he used scriptures to answer the Pharisees and Sadducees and others questions. The lesson for us is that the more we know our Bibles, the more that we can use it to answer the questions, even the tough ones, that we have to answer in life.

-- the other lesson that we can take away from this verse, and others related to it, is that we can be very good about reading scripture, but if we don't read it with our minds and hearts open to receiving God's message, then we can miss the point entirely. All of the men who confronted Jesus in the Temple during this time were considered very learned men - people who had devoted their entire lives to the study of God's word -- and they all missed the fact that Jesus was the fulfillment of all the scriptures.

Today's prayer request: America's friends in London .

No country is as much a friend of the United States as the people of the UK. We need to pray for them, and particularly the people of London, as they deal with today's terrorists attacks.

Today's class member prayer:

Jeri Wesson

Have a great day.

Jay