Because Jesus has given me strength,
And it is done.
So I will finish, and complete, well.
Wednesday, October 28
Monday, October 26
They, Them and Jesus
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Parables are NOT illustrations or fables meant to reveal a certain point. They are provocative stories designed to make us think. They get under our skin, into our hearts and mess around with our world view. They are disruptive, oddly encouraging, and leave you with both questions and hope alike. Today, being so far removed from the cultural aspects of Jesus life, it’s easy to read the parables two-dimensionally and not think much of them… But they have depth and meaning that can only be grasped when you understand how they function. Jesus rarely interpreted his parables, and this in itself reveals how they work. The meaning bends and morphs over time, through situations and depending on where you’re at when you hear it, making them timeless and transcendent.
***
The more correct translation is “Mystery”… and NOT some weird, out there, hard to find mystery. But one that requires faith to be seen. A mystery that leads one to silence… to “be still and know that (he is) God…”
Parables are NOT illustrations or fables meant to reveal a certain point. They are provocative stories designed to make us think. They get under our skin, into our hearts and mess around with our world view. They are disruptive, oddly encouraging, and leave you with both questions and hope alike. Today, being so far removed from the cultural aspects of Jesus life, it’s easy to read the parables two-dimensionally and not think much of them… But they have depth and meaning that can only be grasped when you understand how they function. Jesus rarely interpreted his parables, and this in itself reveals how they work. The meaning bends and morphs over time, through situations and depending on where you’re at when you hear it, making them timeless and transcendent.
***
The more correct translation is “Mystery”… and NOT some weird, out there, hard to find mystery. But one that requires faith to be seen. A mystery that leads one to silence… to “be still and know that (he is) God…”
To live alive to the mystery, to be able to hear and see, to receive the seed that The Sower plants, is a life of faith. But how often does fear play on our faith, knocking it around a little, causing a touch of blindness and an ounce of deafness.But does our ability to hear and see effect God’s ability to keep on revealing his mystery? Has he turned off the sun and sent the moon to bed simply because some cannot see him in them? Does he silence blessing and hide his generosity because there are those who can’t see it for the goodness that it is? Does he hide the cross because some cannot fathom its power?
Paul reminds us that
“even if we are faithless, he will still be full of faith, for he never wavers in his faithfulness to us!”
(2 Tim 2:13)
“even if we are faithless, he will still be full of faith, for he never wavers in his faithfulness to us!”
(2 Tim 2:13)
Tuesday, October 20
Wednesday, October 7
Tuesday, October 6
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