Tag: Following Jesus

Morning Musing: Mark 2:27

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“Then he told them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.’”‬ ‭(CSB‬‬ – Read the chapter)

Why do we have rules? What is their purpose? At the most basic level there are two purposes. One is to restrain. The other is to teach. These two are not mutually exclusive of one another. Some rules are intended both to restrain and teach. They restrain behavior that is bad while actively teaching behavior that is good. Good rules do this. Out of balance, though, things can get messy quickly. What we see here is Jesus teaching the Pharisees a lesson on the purpose of God’s rules. Let’s pay attention to it.

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Digging in Deeper: Mark 2:24-26

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“The Pharisees said to him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?’ He said to them, ‘Have you never read what David and those who were with him did when he was in need and hungry — how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest and ate the bread of the Presence — which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests — and also gave some to his companions?’”‬ ‭(CSB‬‬ – Read the chapter)

One of the standard excuses or arguments kids have always made with their parents when trying to either justify something they’ve done or else plead for something they want is this: “But all the other kids are doing it!” The simple logic here is that if everyone else is doing it, then it must not be a bad thing to do. Therefore, they should get to do it as well. What we know as older and wiser parents (right???) is that right and wrong is not set by group consensus, and so what all the other kids are doing is not going to have any bearing on what we do. Why am I thinking about this today? Because it seems like Jesus was using this kind of reasoning here and I’m not sure what to do about it.

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Digging in Deeper: Mark 2:21-22

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“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new patch pulls away from the old cloth, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost as well as the skins. No, new wine is put into fresh wineskins.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever seen somebody be insulted without realizing they were being insulted? Jon Stewart, former host of Comedy Central’s popular series, “The Daily Show,” was well-known for doing this. He would send out “reporters” to do interviews with unsuspecting individuals which were then edited to make them look stupid at best. Well, Jesus wasn’t doing that here, but He was making an observation about some folks that wasn’t exactly complimentary. In doing so, though, He offers us a good reminder to not fall into the same trap they had. Let’s talk about it.

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Morning Musing: 1 Peter 2:15

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“For it is God’s will that you silence the ignorance of foolish people by doing good.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

When was the last time you saw a post on social media that was so wrong you felt like it was your moral duty to correct it? Perhaps just this morning. There are a lot of people out there who are just ignorant, aren’t there? Of course, it may be the case that someone else has read something you posted and felt the same way. That’s not quite so comfortable a thought. Let’s shift subjects a bit. As followers of Jesus, we live in a world that seems increasingly intolerant of our faith all the time. And much of that vitriol seems to be expressed on social media…where we want to correct it. And we’re back to that again. Okay then, what should we do about it?

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Knocking Down Walls

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We’ve finally reached the end of this journey. We’ve seen the church rise up, thrive through adversity, stand firm in the face of some pretty intense internal challenges, and finally hit its stride here in the most exciting story of all with a church business meeting. Wait…a church business meeting? How could that be exciting? Because this one would set the tone for how the church working well would approach ministry for the rest of its history. You’ve never seen such an exciting business meeting before. Read on to find out what happened and what it means for us.

Knocking Down Walls

Have you ever seen the gameshow Wipeout? It is a favorite in our household. If you’ve never seen it, the basic premise is that a group of pretty average folks are invited to take part in an insane series of obstacle courses. Each course is designed for the contestants to fail and in increasingly embarrassing ways. The bigger the wipeouts, the better the laughs. 

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