Oh people of the Cloth!
2010-05-31 by Peggy Dillner
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In all three passages, people come to understand the power and glory of God through these men, Elijah, Paul, and Jesus.  The healing, whether it was literal or figurative, takes place in all three instances, one illness, one death, and one conversion.  Following these acts, people come to "glorify God."  How then, are we in the 21st century to give witness to God?  What healings can we offer that will have people glorify God?  For those of us who live in a non-flat scientific world  and attack prior demons with medicines, how do we handle such written miracles?  The skeptic in me - and lots of people in the pews and certainly among the unchurched - wonder what we can learn from these stories.  These stories from our ancestors in the faith should inform us how to live today.  Such miraculous tales are often the hardest for the non-theologian to explain to our athiest/agnostic friends and relatives.   Here is your challenge, oh people of the Cloth!



Texts for June 6
2010-05-31 by Person in the Pew
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The texts (2 of them) for June 6 are below. Thanks!

Be sure to give your blog entry a title.

1 Kings 17: 8-24

17:8 Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying,

17:9 "Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you."

17:10 So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, "Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink."

17:11 As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, "Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand."

17:12 But she said, "As the LORD your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die."

17:13 Elijah said to her, "Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son.

17:14 For thus says the LORD the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the LORD sends rain on the earth."

17:15 She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days.

17:16 The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the LORD that he spoke by Elijah.

17:17 After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill; his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him.

17:18 She then said to Elijah, "What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!"

17:19 But he said to her, "Give me your son." He took him from her bosom, carried him up into the upper chamber where he was lodging, and laid him on his own bed.

17:20 He cried out to the LORD, "O LORD my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?"

17:21 Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried out to the LORD, "O LORD my God, let this child's life come into him again."

17:22 The LORD listened to the voice of Elijah; the life of the child came into him again, and he revived.

17:23 Elijah took the child, brought him down from the upper chamber into the house, and gave him to his mother; then Elijah said, "See, your son is alive."

17:24 So the woman said to Elijah, "Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth."

Luke 7: 11-17

7:11 Soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him.

7:12 As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother's only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town.

7:13 When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, "Do not weep."

7:14 Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, "Young man, I say to you, rise!"

7:15 The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.

7:16 Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, "A great prophet has risen among us!" and "God has looked favorably on his people!"

7:17 This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.

Love this idea
2010-05-31 by Person in the Pew
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Hi,

I love this idea! Thanks for setting it up! 

Justified by Faith (May 30)
2010-05-27 by Tim Norton
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What exactly does Paul mean when he says we are justified by faith?  I know I’ve read the passage dozens of times and have heard it preached just as many – I hear it and accept it (literally) as gospel, but I’m not quite sure I can get my head around the concept.  In Webster’s dictionary, the secondary definition of the verb justify, following the sub-classification of Archaic (good grief!) reads: to release from the guilt of sin and accept as righteous: absolve.  I wonder if this is the most precise translation from the Greek.

A wise pastor once challenged our congregation with this question: is Faith a choice or a gift?  Suspecting a trick question, I answered “both.”  (Great Tim, way to take a stand!)  Really though, how you answer depends on your definition of faith.  Faith that comes from hearing the good news of the Gospel, from the acceptance of Jesus as Lord and Savior, and from offering ourselves to become instruments of God’s peace – I would say that makes it a choice, a learned response.  But I wonder if here in the Romans passage, is Paul indicating that faith is a more of a gift, as is our redemption to God won for us by the Christ, and “the grace in which we stand”? 

What if all these: faith, redemption, and grace, are all first gifts given by God to his children until the time when the Holy Spirit comes (another gift) as revealed in the John 16 passage, to “guide us into all the truth”?  The Holy Spirit teaches us and inspires us, opens our eyes, and causes God’s children to mature.   Faith can then become a choice at last, freely chosen by the people of God.  It reminds me of the 1 Corinthians 13 passage describing the maturation process from childhood to adulthood.  With the Holy Spirit guiding us into all the truth, perhaps that new faith, given first as a gift to a child, later chosen by an adult, transforms our souls, our minds, that though “Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

Timing Is Everything (May 23)
2010-05-20 by Tim Norton
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I love this story of Pentecost because it is so full of hope, joy, and release. And by the details of this well-documented event, we know the good news of this story is for all people in every time and place.  It’s not for a select crowd, or for any single gender, race, creed, religion, social level, behavioral identity or ethnic tradition – it is for all of them together.  And apparently these proclamations of the great deeds of God that came gushing out of the apostles through the power of the Holy Spirit were delivered in languages which had previously been abandoned and to people of national distinctions that no longer existed.  I’d dare say, if this were to happen today, the resultant amazement and confusion of the witnesses would be just as utterly complete as back then.

            The song says the Spirit blows when and where it will.  And how about the timing here!  Pastor, talk to me about God’s timing.  Talk to me about Pentecost a/k/a Shavuot of the Jewish calendar.  Talk to me about the Holy Spirit’s power to dispel the apostles’ fear of persecution and turn it into the drive to launch Christ’s church in the world.  Talk to me about Shavuot, the day of harvest, a commemoration of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments on the fiftieth day of the Exodus.  Jesus spoke in parable about the garden and the gardener.  Talk to me about God’s harvest of people; how his Holy Spirit plants the seeds of his kingdom in the garden; and how Pentecost, the harvest of his garden, means the kingdom of God is here and now for those who will receive it. 



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