#I think I’ve only had one other class where we focused on the hebrew scriptures and it was hands down my favorite religion/theo class

[determinedowl23]

im about to have the hypest theology class of my life im actually super excited

[tonguelikeareadyscribe]

Re-Centering

The Western Wall || August 2019

3 Things I’ve learned in 2020 so far:

Life is fleeting

Things can change in an instant

True happiness can be found in surrender to God

If someone told fourteen-year-old me that in 2020 I would graduate from a reputable university, get married to my boyfriend of three and a half years, and be sheltering at home due to a world-wide pandemic, I would say you’re crazy. Well I probably wouldn’t say it. But I would certainly think it. Teenage Rachael was a train-wreck, though not in the most evident sense. She got good grades, she had a loving family and good friends, and at a glance had very little to complain about. But her soul was broken. She was rude, sarcastic, ill-tempered, and failed in the places where it mattered most. Foolish, depressed and negative, and seeking joy in the lifeless. Doing everything right by the world’s standards yet doing nothing right at all.

Negativity followed to college, as did anxiety, depression, and fear. She paced outside of meeting halls, heart palpitating at the thought of making conversation with strangers. Every text, email, or call to be made to new friends, coworkers, of supervisors were made with shaking hands and the dread that she was not communicating well enough, or she wasn’t interesting, or she wasn’t worth the time of replying. Her mother pushed her to turn to God and his followers, to seek out community, and to find peace in his holy word. So she did and as time moved forward and her time at university progressed, she found peace, love, and confidence in the relationships formed between herself, friends, and God. For awhile things were good, and she forgot the broken life of her past. Encompassed by the thrills of living in a community centered on similar beliefs and experiences, the person she once was laid forgotten in the archives of the internet and in the minds of those who once knew her.

And then 2020 hit with its many landslides and little, negative, high school Rachael made a bit of a reappearance in me. Finished with classes, laid off from work due to COVID-19, and stuck in a shoe box-size apartment in LA with two other girls, life became quite tedious. Days consisted of sleeping in late because there is nothing to really wake up for, filling out countless applications for minimum-wage jobs, receiving little or no response from said applications, and saying goodbye to friends who had become like family before the school year even finished. Purposeless and without hope of returning to normal anytime soon, I felt the same weight that so many people across the globe have expressed each and everyday since stay-at-home measures have been in place.

In an instant the life I had built at my school was decimated, and my soul weary. For a month, I let myself descend into a season of depression, filling my time with meaningless activities to numb the pain of what was lost and what could no longer be. I started running every day to feign some sort of progress or movement forward. Running past the hospital, I have pleaded with God to fix this. I have begged him to bring physical protection and healing to those effected by the sickness, and emotional support to those indirectly linked to patients and at-risk family and friends. I cried for things to return to normal so I could go home to see my family, so that my friends could return to school to finish our senior year, and so that our graduation and my wedding can happen as had been planned for months. It’ll suffice to say that my prayers have not been answered yet.

So why am I writing all this you may ask? I see it as a means of re-centering. I found that I am in desperate need of renewed life in the midst of this pandemic, and I hope that this is a productive means of doing so. For weeks I have been moping around waiting for some good news, feeling severely discouraged by the amount of sadness and pain found in the media. Last night, my loving boyfriend and fiance, Trevor, called me out about my negative attitude and overwhelming sadness.

“You spend so much time focusing on what you lost that you can’t even see what you’ve been blessed with,” he said.

“What blessings could you possibly be talking about?” Emotions were heightened. All I wanted to do was weep for what I felt was owed to me and grieve that which I did not have. In depressive moods I tend towards throwing myself a good ol’ pity party and this was no exception.

“You spend so much time thinking about what you’ve lost and how you’re not being productive, that you fail to see what truly matters. When was the last time that you spent time alone with God?”

The only reply I had for him was choked breath between soft sobs. He was right of course. In the past few years, I’ve been so wrapped up in the good and comfortable life that God had given me that I fell away from the giver himself. Life had become a game of ‘I need this or that to be happy’ and ‘If I do this or that then I am successful.’ It became a game of comparison of ‘They have this and I don’t, therefore I am a failure.’ For so long I have been stuck in a rut of comparing my success and happiness to that of others, and trying to make my life resemble theirs that when it didn’t, I felt hopeless and heartbroken.

“You’ve been blessed with so much free time this quarter, and all you do is complain about not having anything to do. You need to start focusing on what you can do, and stop grieving what you can’t,” he told me sternly.

It’s moments like this that I can see why God has brought us to each other. While it is my natural tendency to look at things from pessimism and self-centered-ness, Trevor has a knack for pulling me back into the light. He reveals things I do not see and guides me back to our roots in Jesus Christ. Where I am closed off, unbelieving, and short-sighted, Trevor speaks without inhibition, has relentless faith, and sees a hopeful vision of the future far beyond what I could ever hope to perceive. I like to push down thoughts and feelings until they can’t fit any more, but he is truthful and raw. He wears his emotions on his sleeve, and is not afraid to help me confront my faults. He believes in me even when I do not.

It came as no surprise that he gave me this little challenge: ”Here’s what you should do. Every day I want you to spend time reading the word and then writing down what you’re thankful for in that moment and then three ‘new’ things you’re going to learn or attempt to do.”

So here’s to day one of growing closer to the Lord, focusing on being thankful for his blessings, and trying new things.

Today, I am thankful for those whom I get to spend this time of sheltering at home with. I am so very blessed to have the support of my fiance and my roommates during these strange times, to be surrounded by their love, wisdom, and faithfulness. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to grow alongside them as we pursue faith, discipline, and confidence during this time of separation and isolation. Praise God that we are able to continue our fellowship in these last few months we have together in LA, for I know life would be nearly unbearable without them.

The first of the new habits I have taken up in my free time is learning the Hebrew language. I opened this post with a picture of the Western Wall, a place I visited last summer that has made a long-lasting mark on my heart. I had the privilege of visiting this site on the evening of Shabbat, the most important day of the week in Jewish tradition. The night was full of dedicated prayers, dancing to Hebrew songs, recitations of scriptures, and fellowship with other believers. The plaza in front of the Western Wall was packed with followers worshiping God. It was a vision of heaven on earth, and I would love nothing more than to return and see it all again when God permits. When I return, I hope to bring with me a greater understanding of the language and culture directly linked to my faith.

The second of the new habits is this long and rambling post which you just read. I hope to re-purpose this blog as a sort of public diary, a place to process and record that which I’m learning or experiencing through writing down thoughts, prayers, stories, and snapshots. I’m looking to re-center, re-focus, and re-commit all facets of my life on Christ and pursue life and happiness where I know it can be found. I can only dream how God might use this in my own life or in the lives of others. Here’s to surrendering my story to God and his will.

[woodworkingpastor]

Many Persons – One Body -- Acts 6:1-7 -- April 18, 2021 -- Third Sunday of Easter

The Lord is risen!

He is risen indeed!

We tend to focus our holiday attention on the lead up to the event, which means we move on from them too quickly. We don’t want to move on too quickly from Easter. Just as we spent the 40 days of Lent preparing for the death and resurrection of Jesus, we want to be aware of this time between Jesus’ resurrection and ascension.

What might ask ourselves, what date defines our time? September 11, 2001? Those who are deeply concerned about the rise of mass-casualty shootings in America often name December 14, 2012—the date of the Sandy Hook shooting—as significant because of how little impact the mass murder of 20 first graders had on our attitude toward guns. How about 2020 in general?

For the church, events that happened in 33 AD are what governs our time and our thinking. How do we live today in light of what happened in 33 AD? Please pray with me:

Lord, help us to see:

to see what is eternally good and true,

and having seen, to go on searching

until we come to the joys of heaven.

This we ask through Jesus Christ our Redeemer, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever. Amen.

Practitioners of the Kingdom of God

We have followed the Narrative Lectionary through the Gospel of Luke since the Sunday before Christmas, simply taking the assigned text as it comes to us. We’re approaching the end of this year’s Narrative Lectionary cycle with three Sundays in the Book of Acts and then three more in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Acts is helpful to us as we learn how to live in light of 33 AD. Acts provides glimpses into how the early Christians were practitioners of the Kingdom of God in the years following Jesus’ resurrection.

That word “practitioners” is an interesting one; you’ve probably heard the quip about not wanting to go to a doctor who is only “practicing” medicine, you want one who knows what he or she is doing! Of course, that’s not what the word means. To be a “practitioner” is to be one who is actively engaged in an art, discipline, or profession. So in this sense we see the early church “practicing” Christianity in the sense that they are actively engaged in what it means to follow Jesus in a particular time and place.

Their constant focus—which was also an opportunity and a struggle—was to follow the Spirit’s leading to bring all persons into the body of Christ. Acts 6:1-7 shows us the kinds of situations we will encounter as practitioners of the Kingdom of God. Just a chapter before today’s passage, we read a description of a church where there are no needy people.

Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold (Acts 4:32-34).

But when we arrive at Acts 6 we find that the relationships in the church have gotten a bit more complicated:

Now during those days, when the disciples were increasing in number, the Hellenists complained against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food (Acts 6:1).

Here, we find the church does have needy people in it, and the needs of those persons aren’t being met—they might even be overlooked or ignored. Acts does not view the early church through rose-colored glasses; in today’s text we find that the church is experiencing some growing pains. It’s not clear if this is more of an administrative problem or more of a racial problem—it’s probably a combination of the two.

What seems clear is that this is an entirely believable problem because even as the practice of our faith moves us to be more like Jesus, our stubborn human nature is still with us. As we learn to view one another though Kingdom-colored lenses, our vision remains tainted with our old fallenness. Acts 6 describes a church comprised of people who are racial, cultural, and economic strangers to one another. As such, they struggle with the sin of partiality—they show favoritism based on earthly characteristics.

James wrote about the sin of partiality in his letter:

My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? (James 2:1-4).

The temptation is to relate to people based on appearances and categories. But in the Kingdom, we seek to see things made whole.

It would be somewhat easy to be an armchair quarterback here and criticize the church of Acts 6 for their struggle to enjoy renewed relationships across ethnic and economic boundaries. But what we see in this passage is exactly the kind of thing we ought to expect when we are doing our job! When the church is more than just a comfortable place for the already committed but is instead a place where people encounter the resurrected Jesus and accept his invitation to take up their cross and follow, then we will encounter the messiness of transformation, because life in Jesus is different from life in the world.

In the Church of the Brethren, I regularly encounter this clash of values in the new members class when we do the lesson on Biblical non-resistance (the peace position). No one ever objects to the lesson on prayer, or mission, or Oak Grove’s history. But when it comes to the Church of the Brethren belief that war is sin, people start to get uncomfortable, not because people believe war is good, but because we have been shaped to believe it is sometimes necessary. In that lesson we encounter a place where what the world teaches and what the Gospel teaches are quite different. My response is always the same, “we are not asking you to affirm this to become a member of our church. But we absolutely believe that if you hang around with us long enough, Jesus will change your mind.”

Overcoming the old with the new

The church of Acts 6 had two simultaneous tasks: seeing many people come to faith in Jesus and overcoming old thinking. Their response is two-fold.

First, they empower those bringing the complaint to look among themselves and appoint leaders to address the issue. But not just anyone is to be selected; the ones called deacons are to be

of good standing [and] full of the Spirit and of wisdom (Acts 6:3)

Deacon ministry may be primarily focused on the administrative task of food distribution, but it remains a leadership position where the most qualified persons for the job are the ones who were likely already functioning in that role.

From these beginnings, the church has long prioritized deacon ministry. Writing late in the first century, early church leader Ignatius of Antioch said of deacons

It is necessary that those who are deacons of the mysteries of Jesus Christ please everyone in every respect. For they are not merely deacons of food and drink, but ministers of God’s church. Therefore they must avoid criticism as though it were fire.

But Ignatius had something to say about deacon ministry to the rest of us, too:

Similarly, let everyone respect the deacons as Jesus Christ, just as they should respect the bishop, who is a model of the Father and the presbyters and God’s council and as the band of the apostles.

This is necessary because deacon ministry demonstrates that power and authority in the church is not practiced by having control over people; Godly leadership invests in serving the people on the bottom of societal structures. The church of Acts 6 had encountered a very believable problem where the church’s growth had outpaced the maturity of its members. Deacons are appointed because the church is to be a visible demonstration of the kingdom of God. We are to literally structure ourselves to value the most vulnerable in our midst. Not just tolerate or make accommodations for, but actually structure ourselves in this fashion.

In some ways we recognize the importance of this by our presence outside the sanctuary; in these days of pandemic we realize the most important question for us is “not where I want to worship” but “how do we need to structure our worship to protect and honor the most vulnerable in our midst?” How we respond to situations like these—be they food distribution in Acts 6 or our own need for deacons in our day have an administrative component to them, but they are ultimately questions of how we are practitioners of the kingdom of God.

There is a second reason why the apostles call for deacons to be appointed:

we, for our part, will devote ourselves to prayer and to serving the word (Acts 6:4)

The division of labor in the church recognizes the importance of prayer, discipleship, and the proclamation of the word of God. The apostles maintain their focus on bringing people into the family because as I’ve noted, the church is not just a comfortable place for the committed, it is an outward-focused community working to reconcile all things under the lordship of Christ. Prayer and scripture are the primary means through which we will overcome things like the sin of partiality which leads us to treat people according to the patterns and categories of this world, or to accept the inevitability of war as the only option simply because earthly kingdoms lack the ability to find other solutions to the problems that face us. Prayer and scripture are the places where our lives are transformed and we live into these days of resurrection where our lives are shaped by the events of 33 AD, not the events of 9/11/01 or 12/14/12 or 2020 or any other date, or time, or ideology.

It is in this context of this kind or church where we read

The word of God continued to spread; the number of the disciples increased greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith (Acts 6:7).

Even unlikely people—like Jewish priests—came to see the truth about Jesus and chose to have their lives defined by 33AD. On a day when we install new deacons to serve among us—and to be highly respected by each of us—may the practice of our faith also be like that of the early church where even the unlikeliest of people find their lives shaped through prayer, Scripture, and the overcoming of sin. Let us practice our faith together with great enthusiasm and great joy.

[maximuswolf]

What are your thoughts on this other philosophical/theological argument for Christianity? via /r/pagan

What are your thoughts on this other philosophical/theological argument for Christianity?

Here it is:

“My explanations make up for deficiencies you see in Christianity at large as a faith or a religious community; but we all benefit from a deeper mutual understanding. I am certainly richer as a Christian and a human being for my understanding of different Pagan practices and beliefs from my time as a practising Pagan (primarily of the Celtic variety).

It's absolutely true that there is no immediate contemporary evidence for the existence of Jesus but that truly isn't very remarkable. To non-Christian contemporaries Jesus was barely worth paying attention to - he was, in their minds as you say, the leader of a small fringe Jewish cult, and not someone the Romans or the Jews had much need to write about. There are similar problems with confirming the existence of Socrates or Alexander the Great: the truth is it's very difficult to find surviving records from most of these periods because no one was thinking "this will be big history in 2020!". For all three men, we rely on the accounts of people who knew them and/or lived soon after them to know about their lives. If you want to deny Jesus' existence based on a lack of contemporary documentary evidence, you probably need to also deny the existence of Socrates, Alexander the Great and a large number of other ancient figures.

If you were going to make up someone to follow, Jesus isn't terribly logical as a choice. You could invent a Messiah who much better fits the expectations of 1st Century Judaism - you would probably not have called him 'Jesus', for one, because as you note the name is utterly unremarkable. If your goal was power and influence, then you probably wouldn't have had Jesus give the authority to build a Church to Peter, a working class, illiterate fisherman. It's very doubtful you would have John the Baptist in your story at all as someone who is shown, even momentarily, to have some kind of role over Christ. You almost certainly wouldn't have your grand narrative of Jesus' life end in his brutal execution at the hands of the Roman authorities in Israel with the man who becomes the founder of the Church, Peter, depicted as a traitor to the cause who weeps with guilt at what he's done. Instead of having Jesus die and rise again, your story would probably focus on having Jesus win some immense miracle victory over the Romans and then ascend into Heaven triumphant - you would probably cut out the part where he dies and his followers despair. Scholars believe that the earliest books of the New Testament, some of the authentic letters of Paul, date to within two decades or less of Jesus' death; Paul, despite having been anti-Christian for some of his life, does not seem to be aware of any movement to deny Jesus lived. In the 3rd century the Pagan philosopher Porphyry wrote an extensive condemnation of Christianity; Porphyry did not attack the idea that Jesus existed but instead sought to depict Jesus as a false prophet. Bart Ehrman is one of the leading experts on early Christianity in the world: he is also an atheist. There isn't much of a case for suggesting Jesus didn't exist.

With regards to the burial of Jesus and the bribe, theserenitysystem is (totally understandably!) confusing two similar incidents. You're right that the Romans would not have taken the time to bury someone like Jesus. The Bible tells us that this was possible because a Christian sympathiser, possibly a Christian himself, who was in good standing within contemporary society went to Pilate on the night of the execution and asked if he could take Christ's body for burial, and this request was granted (Matthew 27:57 - 60; Mark 15:43 - 46; Luke 23:50 - 53; John 19:38 - 42). This is in fact directly relevant to your observation that crucifixion did not necessarily mean being nailed to a cross and often simply meant being hung or whipped to death on a tree. Ancient Jewish law held that the body of anyone executed on a tree was cursed, and that the land their body was kept on would be cursed until it was buried (Deuteronomy 21:22 - 23). Joseph - the follower who went to request the body - almost certainly persuaded Pilate to hand over the corpse of Jesus on the basis that if he did not do so, the local populace would think it an affront to their God and in keeping with Roman attitudes towards local religion, the best thing to do would be to let Joseph, as a man in good standing, bury the body safely (Joseph, of course, told the followers of Christ what he was doing and took care to give Jesus a decent burial). For Christians that Christ was executed in a way that is profoundly humiliating in ancient culture, and in a manner that the ancient Jews believed meant the deceased was cursed, is an important part of our understanding of what Jesus' sacrifice on the cross means: faced with God incarnate, instead of celebrating Him, we murdered him in the most violent, degrading, brutal way imaginable.

Matthew 25:29 is absolutely an interesting verse! But it's part of a parable; a simple, short story used to illustrate an ethical or moral perspective advocated by Jesus. It was one of the main methods of preaching employed by Christ in His earthly life. In this case, the passage you quote -Matthew 25:29 - is actually a call back to an earlier, identical saying of Jesus in Matthew 13:12. If you read 13:12 first you see that Jesus is using this phrase in reference to believers and non-believers. He explains to the Apostles that he teaches in parables so that those who do not truly listen to him will only hear the superficial story, whilst those who look for the deeper meaning - like the disciples did - will understand that within the story there are important moral and theological lessons. Matthew 25:14 - 29 is a parable that uses the imagery of money as an allegory for how Christians should behave in their faith on the understanding that the Earthly world will pass away; that they should be bold, knowing that change is coming. It follows on directly and explicitly from another parable about the faithful being prepared for the arrival of Christ in His Second Coming (Matthew 25:1 - 13). Just as that parable, which concerns itself with ten virgins, is not a literal story about ten virgins, neither is the parable of the talents concerned with financial affairs.

Matthew 26:8 - 11 has to be appreciated within the context of the particular event that moves Christ to say these things. In this situation, it is the Disciples chastising a well-meaning woman for wasting valuable ointment on Jesus when it could have been sold to benefit the poor. What the Disciples are doing here is not making the argument that these things are wasted economically; there is already the understanding and acceptance that Christ preaches the need to redistribute wealth and support the impoverished. Christ is instead accusing the Disciples of being unnecessarily harsh to the woman and focusing on the worth of her actions rather than considering the sincerity of her faith, and her genuine attempt to do something selfless. He is essentially saying "come on guys: are you really annoyed at the waste, or are you trying to show you're a better disciple than she is?". He is exposing pride disguising itself as charitable concern; concern trolling, essentially. The Lord's seemingly callous words here, about the poor always being with us, are in fact a call back to Deuteronomy 15:11 with its explicit instruction:

Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, "Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbour in your land."

Matthew 10:34 - 37 is not a religious commandment to violence or division. First of all, 'hate' or its equivalent is not a word that appears in the original Greek text; a more literal translation is "whoever sees greater value in his mother or father than in me", not "whoever does not hate his family". The NRSV, the most widely accepted scholarly version of the Bible, renders the passage as "whoever loves father or mother more than me". This passage is a warning to followers of Christ that, at the time of Jesus' life, taking up his faith will make families cast them out and make parents turn against children. Christians are still called to answer this with the peace and love Christ commands in Matthew 22:39; the warning is that this peaceful evangelism will be met with exclusion, marginalisation and violence, as Christ himself demonstrated when his peaceful surrender to the authorities lead to his own brutal, torturous, slow murder at the hands of the Romans. The specific phrasing Jesus uses is a call back to Hebrew scripture once again, specifically to Micah 7:6, which describes a period of turbulence and violent unrest in ancient Judah in which "the son treats the father with contempt [...] your enemies are members of your own household". Christ is warning his followers that, just like in Micah's time, the Gospel will anger people so much they will condemn even their own children for following him. His message here is essentially: "Don't think I've come to cushion the truth just to make things easier. This is how things are, and if you want to follow me, people will marginalise and oppress you for it". The quote from Micah, incidentally, is further significant: Jesus quotes Micah twice, and one of the more notable parts of Micah is its condemnation of the hoarding of wealth (Micah 3:1-4), especially by religious leaders.

Matthew was written as a single volume to summarise its author's understanding of Christ's life and teachings from the source material available. Whilst passages out of context seem contradictory, read together, they make sense.”

Submitted September 14, 2020 at 03:10PM by Competitive_Bid7071 via reddit https://ift.tt/35ArKVf