Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Good Morning

 

Happy Valentine's Day!

 

I was traveling yesterday with one of my clients, and in our conversation she mentioned that her girls did not observe Valentine's Day at their public school because it was a holiday with Christian connections. (the whole God in the classroom argument).  That got me thinking about knowing more about the story of St. Valentine, so here it is, from our reliable Wikipedia friends:

St. Valentine's Day falls on February 14, and is the traditional day on which lovers in certain cultures let each other know about their love, commonly by sending Valentine's cards, which are often anonymous. The history of Valentine's day can be traced back to a Catholic Church feast day, in honor of Saint Valentine. The day's associations with romantic love arrived after the High Middle Ages, during which the concept of romantic love was formulated.

The day is now most closely associated with the mutual exchange of love notes in the form of "valentines." Modern Valentine symbols include the heart-shaped outline and the figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th century, the practice of hand writing notes has largely given way to the exchange of mass-produced greeting cards. The Greeting Card Association estimates that, world-wide, approximately one billion valentine cards are sent each year, making the day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year behind Christmas. The association also estimates that women purchase approximately 85 percent of all valentines.

Jay's note:  St. Valentine was taken off the Catholic Church feast calendar in 1969, because from what I can tell, the church didn't really know how legit his story was. More about the day and St. Valentine's story at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine_Day

Today's Reading:  Revelation 3:7-13; read pages 138-141 in Barclay; stop before "Inheritors of the Promise"

 

-- continuing with the church at Philadelphia.

 

-- couple of things today, not exactly on topic

 

-- one is the idea of holy.  Barclay talks about what exactly that word means, and it is different than the way I would have described it.  Holy, as he mentions, means different, separate from.  God is holy because he is different than us, as humans.  We have had an ongoing discussion in our class about the word holiness, and our call to be holy as Christians.  When you think of "holy" as above, two things are clear.  One is that we can't be holy as God is holy, simply because there will always be a difference between us and God.  The second is the idea that we can be holy in that we can aspire to be different, to be separate from the world and the culture around us.

 

Note though, I think that we need some more perspectives on the word holy and its meaning. I'll find some more discussion on that later this week.

 

-- the other thought is a simple one, but the idea of having a key as a sign of authority.  I know that I've read this section more than a few times, and didn't really get the idea of authority from the idea of having the key.  I guess I always thought about the keys in these verses as ownership maybe, or symbolic of having information.  But Barclay got me thinking about the idea of key as authority, and it really is true -- you think about a retail store -- who has the keys to the store -- the managers -- and some people have more keys than others, depending on their authority and responsibility.

 

Just an interesting twist to something that we see everyday.

 

Today's Scripture

 

Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails.

 

1 Corinthians 13:4-8a

Today's prayer requests:   Corey

Corey is one of Megan's students, who recently found out he had a tumor on this brain.  They are going to do more tests on March 21, so they won't know anything more till then as to how they will be able to treat this.  We just need to remember him and his family in our prayers.

Prayer Notes:

My dad did well yesterday -- he was at home by 3P.  He's a little down in that the procedure wasn't a more permanent fix, or at least the doctors didn't promise that to him, but he seems to be doing well.

Here's a note from Kelley Thaxton, who was our class member prayer for yesterday.  Kelley has been following the class by email for a long time:

Jay, and others,

There are some days that I do not have enough time to read the devotional that you send.  I have a folder set up for those occasions.  Today, however, I felt that I should read it.  My family and I have been struggling for the past few months with illnesses (mononucleosis included) and finances.  This weekend brought the most unexpected and humiliating experience, as a result of finances, that I could imagine.  I won’t go into details, but I spent most of the weekend in tears (which is not normal, to be sure). 

The only reason that I am sharing this information is that I truly believe in the power of intercessory prayer.  I thank you, greatly, for listing me as your class member prayer today.  Please pray for us.  We can’t make it through this without God’s intervention, wisdom, patience, and strength. 

Thank you, to everyone who prays in faith that God’s will be done.

In Him,

Kelley

Today's class member prayer:

Wes Russell

Have a great day.

Jay