Friday, February 3, 2006

Good Morning

 

Hope to see everyone on Sunday.  Note that this Sunday is the "First Fruits" offering, which is when you bring the first payments towards your capital stewardship pledge.  FYI, we are currently at total pledges of $760,000 for the campaign, with some additional pledges still to come in.

 

Today's Reading:  Revelation 2:18-29; read pages 110-114 in Barclay; stop before "The Source of the Error"

 

-- We begin the section on the letter to Thyatira.

 

-- Is everyone fine with this new approach of breaking down each section into about 3-5 pages per day?  Seems to be better, but just want to make sure that it isn't going to slow right now.

 

-- the high points of today's reading:

 

-- the longest of the seven letters, written to the least important church of the seven (at least, it was located in the least important town of the seven).

 

-- essentially, to me the letter says -- your church is doing well, but some of the church is being misled by this Jezebel, and the overall church is tolerating her false teaching.

 

-- one thing that I find interesting about the comments about Jezebel -  Jesus says that she's given her time to repent of what she is doing, but she is unwilling.  But there is that idea that everyone has a chance for repentance and salvation, no matter what they've done before -- Jesus is ready to forgive.

 

-- In Barclay's commentary, there is a bit of thought in this direction -- a busy church isn't necessarily a faithful church. Thyratira was a busy church, but they were being called out by Christ for their faithfulness to the Word.

 

Today's Scripture

 

The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

John 10:3

Today's prayer requests:    Jessie Abercrombie, co-worker of Ron Ray's

She was admitted to the hospital last week. She woke up last Wednesday, after two days in ICU, with no feeling in the left side of her body. She has a son that is about 6 years old

Today's class member prayer:

Megan Douglas

Have a great day.

Jay