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

Thursday, February 2, 2006

Good Morning

 

Today's Reading:  Revelation 2:12-17; read pages 109-110 in Barclay; stop before "Letter to Thyatira"

 

-- ending our reading on Pergamum, a short read today.

 

-- one of the things that Barclay does that I do enjoy is the identification of patterns or ideas in the Bible that I had not noticed before.  There is one of those in this section -- the idea that a change in name often accompanies a change in status.  He uses the idea of Abram becoming Abraham, etc.  He focuses on the Old Testament, which has to be the only reason he didn't mention Saul becoming Paul.

 

-- That said, the idea that we will be so thoroughly transformed when we go to heaven that even our name would change is unsettling to me, at least now with my first exposure to the idea. Again, this is somewhat speculation on Barclay's part, but there it is in black and white in the verses we are studying.  The idea that when I go to heaven that I might not be Jay is weird, but then again, the name I would get would be given to me by Jesus, so how can that not be great?

 

-- And the thought occured to me that there is a very common occassion for your name to change, which is when a woman gets married.  That's your last name, not your first name or whole name, so that doesn't seem to be the exactly the same as what is being talked about here, but a huge change it seems to me.  Maybe in class on Sunday some of our married women can share with us their thoughts and feelings about changing their name when they got married.

 

Here is a link to a Wikipedia article about the practice of women changing their name at marriage:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maiden_name

 

-- One other perspective I did gain from the Wikipedia article -- one of the modern knocks about women changing their name is the implication that they belong to the husband, the idea that changing the name signifies the husband's ownership of the wife.  We can debate that point of view either way, but that made me think about this -- of course God can change my name if we wants to --- he does own me -- I am his.  The more I think about it, from where I was at the beginning of this post, is that it is arrogant of me to be put out that God might give me a new name when I get to heaven.  Everything I have belongs to God, and that includes my very name.k

 

 

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:     Corey

Corey is one of Megan Douglas's students, and yesterday they found a tumor on his brain.  Don't know yet the course of treatment, but we need to remember the family in our prayers.

Today's class member prayer:

Ron Ray

Have a great day.

Jay

Wednesday, February 1, 2006

Good Morning

 

Today's Reading:  Revelation 2:12-17; read pages 104-108 in Barclay; stop before "Renamed By God"

 

-- continuing on with letter to Pergamum.

 

-- the portion of the passage today that Barclay is writing about is another example of why Revelation is a tough book to read.

 

-- Barclay has three possible meanings of "hidden manna" in this passage and six possible interpretations of what is meant by the white stone.

 

-- that said, to me the simple answer to the question and to the passage is that for those who stay faithful in these difficult circumstances, there will be a reward in the next life.

 

-- manna is not a hard idea to understand, we are familar with that concept and with the idea of Jesus as the bread of life, so that didn't really throw me too much when reading the verse.  Barclay's discussion of where "hidden" comes from within the Jewish tradition just adds a little depth.

 

-- the white stone reference is a different animal to me -- it doesn't really have any reference to anything that I've ever read in scripture before, so the whole concept is a bit strange.  All of Barclay's thoughts sound plausible, and I generally just mark this up as a reference or figure of speech from John's day that has been lost in the mists of time.

 

-- That said, this letter is Jesus talking, and I don't think he would necessarily promise people something about heaven that was a figure of speech from John's time.  I think that those who heard this word and were faithful are going to get a white stone from Christ with a name on it.

 

-- as an aside, I like the idea that Barclay mentions about having two urns or jars at your house, and that if you had a good day, you'd put a white stone in one jar, and if you had a bad day, you'd put a black stone in another jar, and at the end of your life, people would empty jars and see what kind of life you had.  That is a very interesting idea to me. 

 

Today's Scripture

 

Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life.  He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.

John 6:35

Today's prayer requests:     Margaret Rose Severance

Brigette's grandmother, who has been battling complications from a fall last summer that resulted in a broken leg.  She went back to the hospital last week as part of her recovery, but she needs our prayers to help her recover more fully from the broken leg and the complications and the immobility that has resulted.

Today's class member prayer:

 

Joey Harbarger

Have a great day.

Jay

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Good Morning

 

Today's Reading:  Revelation 2:12-17; read pages 100-104 in Barclay; stop before "The Bread of Heaven"

 

-- continuing with the background for the church at Pergamum.

 

-- At first reading of this section of Barclay, it seems like he contradicts himself.

 

-- There is, in the first section, the discussion about the difficulties of being a Christian in Pergamum, given the variety of pagan worship going on in the city.  Barclay makes what I think is a wonderful point about the Christian life -- that is not about escape but conquest -- that it is not about escape from the world and difficult circumstances for living out our faith, but changing the world and the people around us through living out and sharing our faith.

 

-- However, in the next section, discussion about Christians being different than the world, and Barclay quotes Paul from 2 Corinthians, part of which is below.  On its face, these verses seem to contradict the point that Barclay makes earlier, in that the verses below seem to tell us as Christians to withdraw from association with unbelievers.

 

-- the truth is that it is a very fine line we walk as Christians  - we are the salt of the earth, that group that is supposed to influence things and people and lives beyond our numbers. We are not called to retreat away from the world, but to live in it -- to live in it, but not give in to it.

 

-- essentially, I think that what the church in Pergamum is being called out about, is that it was doing a good job in the circumstances, as far as keeping to the faith in a difficult, hostile environment (with us understanding that hostile meant up to and including death for their beliefs), but they were also slipping into serioius compromise of their beliefs in order to keep going.  Christ in the letter is saying to Christians in Pergamum that he knows it has been tough to keep the faith there, it is a very difficult and dangerous thing, but you can't compromise on the important things, even to get along, no matter how difficult it is.

 

-- it goes back to one of the familiar lines that you've heard all your life -- we are called to be in the world, but not of the world.

 

Today's Scripture

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers.  For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with the darkness?

2 Corinthians 6:14

Today's prayer requests:     Saundra Aaron

Valerie's brother's mother-in-law, who has cancer is going through chemo and having a tough time.

 

Today's class member prayer:

 

Jerri Wesson

Have a great day.

Jay

Monday, January 30, 2006 - one more thing

One More Thing

 

We had talked in class about the site that tests you for bias in a variety of categories -- race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.

 

Here is the link to the web page to take the test on your computer -- go to the site and click on the "demonstration" link.

 

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/index.jsp

 

Jay

Monday, January 30, 2006

Good Morning

 

I'm going to break down the reading a little differently, since the rest of the book has very long sections over short sections of scripture.  At the pace we were going, we'd do the remaining five churches all this week, and that would be about 60 pages of reading, which is too much for a daily study.

 

So this week, we'll do just two of the churches, Pergamum and Thyatira

Today's Reading:  Revelation 2:12-17; read pages 95 - 100 in Barclay; stop before "A Very Difficult Engagement"

 

-- this is the third church on John's list of seven.

 

--  today's section gives us the background about Pergamum, the high points are:

 

-- a major city, long-time capital city in this part of Asia

 

-- unable to major seat of commerce due to its location, it grew nevertheless due to its highly secure location on the top of a hill.

 

-- second largest library in the ancient library in the world.

 

-- the center of worship for several cults, along with Casear worship -- probably the reason John refers to the city as the home of the throne of Satan.  That description sounds very out there, and it might seem a little strange, but we do the exact same thing today -- for instance, we all know where Sin City is (Las Vegas).  Someone looking back at our writings 2,000 years from now will probably have to figure out what we meant by that.

 

-- the short takeaway is that this town was a difficult place for Christians and the church -- we'll see more about that tomorrow in one of the next sections.

-- Today's Scripture

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

Romans 12:12

Today's prayer requests:     Nelson Ferreiro, friend of Megan's family

He has just completed chemo after surgery to remove a tumor from his brain.  The tumor is gone as of now, they will recheck in 60 days, but we need to pray for his continued improvement, and that the cancer stays gone.

 

Today's class member prayer:

 

Jay Waters

Have a great day.

Jay