Friday, January 13, 2006

Good Morning!

 

Last night, at our stewarship communications meeting,  Michelle Ray gave a short talk about what Pleasant Hill meant to her and her family.  It was really good, and I was proud that I knew her.  You can ask her why she ended up doing it instead of Ron.

 

Also, in a separate email, I'm going to send everyone a copy of the PowerPoint deck that was the handout from the stewardship meetings.  If you can't read or open PowerPoint, not to worry -- you can get a hard copy at church.

 

Today is Friday the 13th, a day that causes everyone to cringe.  There is a whole conversation that we could have about Christians and their opinion/belief in superstitions, but if you want to know more about the superstition, here are two links to web sites that discuss Friday the 13th  

 

http://www.snopes.com/luck/friday13.asp

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_the_13th

 

Two interesting facts I picked up:

 

Fear of Friday the 13th is called, among other things, paraskavedekatriaphobia.

 

In the Spanish speaking world, Tuesday the 13th is considered the unlucky day.

 

Today's Reading:  Revelation 1:4-7

 

Another really full section for a short passage -- I don't think he goes to this length for every passage, but in getting started he is really going in-depth:

 

-- a lot of what Barclay explains to us and goes over is a very detailed scholarship of the language, and while it seems minute, he is doing for us about Greek what we already do for ourselves in English -- we are aware in any number of ways, about the very subtle differences in the way writers and speakers will put together words to make a specific point.  But we do all of that without really thinking about it, we just do it because English is our native tongue, and we have years and years of learning about all the subtle ways that we can change the meaning of a sentence.  All of this is probably really boring to those of you who speak and read Greek, but for the rest of us hopefully it hits some interesting points.

 

-- Not going in depth in the reading, but two things caught my attention.  The first was that we are just a few verses into Revelation, and already the numbers are appearing.  As Barclay notes, John has 54 references to the number 7 in the book.

 

-- Second, the thinking/teaching of Barclay that ties the meaning of the number 7 (of representing completeness) to the letters to the seven churches, which can be interpreted in that he is writing to the whole church.  That makes these letters and teachings more relevant to our place and time.

Today's Scripture

 

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith..

Ephesians 3:16-17a

Today's prayer request:      Our bosses

 

Need to pray for those who lead us at work -- the managers, owners, etc. that we work for.  We need to pray that they lead in a manner that is consistent with our faith, and that they do the right things for the right reasons.

 

Today's class member prayer:

Michelle Ray

 

Have a great day.

Jay