Friday, August 5, 2005

Good Morning!

I will see you guys on Sunday. Now that summer is starting to wind down, I hope that all of the traveling that all of us have been doing will start to settle down and more of us can get to class, including myself. We are only just a bit over halfway through, so there is plenty of this study left.

The new unit for this week is Unit 14 -- Forgiveness

Focus Scripture for the Week: Luke 24:45-47

Then he opened his minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations"

Today's Scriptures: Acts 10:34-43, Luke 5-1-26, Mark 11-20-26

Today's Discussion:

-- these are our last three scripture readings for the week.

-- the three cover a variety of things, and our topic this week of forgiveness is the thing we will focus on. In general, all three passages are hear to give us assurance that Jesus is the way to forgiveness. They are, in a way, designed to help alleviate the doubt we might have forgiveness that plagued John and Charles Wesley for so long.

-- the Acts passage is primarily Peter's testimony that Jesus can forgive sins, that he did die on a cross but Peter himself saw him and ate with him after he had been dead and buried. Peter's sermon, for our focus hits two points -- what the plan for forgiveness was (Jesus coming and dying on a cross and being raised again), and his eyewitness testimony that it actually happened.

-- the Luke passage, as regards forgiveness, there are two things -- one are a recounting of miracles that Jesus performed, and then we have one particular miracle that combines forgiveness and proving Jesus' power. The story of the crippled man being lowered through the roof of a house would be interesting if it was a healing miracle alone, but the way the story happened, it is even more remarkable. Jesus told the man first that his sins were forgiven. The attending Pharisees and such correctly thought that only God can forgive sins, and Jesus (heard?) what they were thinking. And Jesus' response is right on the money -- it is easy to say "Your sins are forgiven" - I could say it, you could say it, anyone could say it without any risk of contradiction because you can't prove it. But it is far more difficult to say to a crippled man "Stand up and walk", because that can be proved or disproved immediately. And Jesus' ability to tell the crippled man to walk gives us assurance that when he tells us that "Your sins are forgiven" it is so.

-- the third passage, from Mark, has two particular thoughts about forgiveness -- one is that we need to have confidence and faith in God when we pray, and secondly, that as we are praying, that we need to forgive others as we pray. This passage from Mark echoes other passages throughout the Bible, where our willingness to forgive others is linked to God's willingness to forgive us. Who are we to be stingier with forgiveness than God? Why should we have higher standards?

Question for Sunday:

-- do you know of anyone who has refused for a long time to forgive someone for some transgression? How has that effected that person?

Today's prayer request: Alex Lloyd, Monica's nephew

Alex is a long-term prayer project because of the nature of his hip condition. He continues to recover from his surgery, and we need to pray for his continued recovery.

Today's class member prayer:

Brigitte Severance

Have a great day.

Jay