3 Parables Luke 15

On the way out of Life of Christ on Monday Dr. Foster drops the line don't forget to read Luke 15 because we will talk about it in more depth next lesson. I read the chapter which is broken down into three parables that Jesus speaks to sinners, taxcollectors, The Pharissees and other teachers of the law. There is a lost sheep and a lost coin these story pretty much are mirror imagesof one another. The shepherd leaves the 99 to find one and the woman searches the whole house for the one lost coin. They both rejoice when they find their lost possessions and call their friends and neighbours up on their mobile phones to rejoice with them. Jesus says in both of these parables that there is much celebration in heaven when a sinner repents. The parable of the lost son stills gets the same message across however Jesus doesn't talk about heaven rejoicing in this parable. Instead Jesus talks of the angry brother who refuses to party in the wake of his younger brother's return. His father says you don't understand "you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found." I'm really interested in Dr. Foster's notes on this because sometimes stories that I'm so familar with I just skip over but the class lesson he talked about turning the other cheek. His performance with Abbott I will never forget, I never even considered that take on that passage. Warning to Dr. Foster though, I may steal your story on that for a sermon of mine.

Parables

I've always thought Jesus use of parables is interesting. He could have easily made his point without a creative story, and with a message that didn't require much interpretation. As I read the DJG, it points out that Jesus was not the first to use them. He was, however, the first to use them "consistently, creatively, and effectively." These parables "hold up one reality to serve as a mirror of another." I personally find it interesting to read the parables and find out more about the meaning Jesus had behind each one.

I Can Relate

Every news reporter in the history of the world puts his or her own political slant on a story. Why should Luke be any different? I think the fact that Luke and Matthew potray such different heros only serves as confimation that the accounts are real. I went to summer camp with my best friend and something crazy happened with a turned over canoe and silly middle-aged woman. I was convinced that my boyfriend had saved the day while she swore that hers was the hero (that really happened). The Great thing was no less great and both guys had a hand in the "rescue" but one was not really more of a hero than another. Most things are relative to perspective. This happens in politics especially. One party praises an event while another sees the end of the world around the corner because of it. If I were going to write a story the smart, non-denominational, public schooled, middle-classed, girls from Arkansas would probably be seen in the best light. I don't blame Luke for having a version that appealed to his people and Matthew a version for his; I can relate.

What the heck is that Spirit's deal?

Disclaimer: this probably is not coherent thought and could be with revision but It’s more fun to try to discern my confusion and irrelevancy isn’t it?
In class Foster brought up the role of the Holy Spirit in Luke-Acts and we talked briefly about Acts 21 where it appears that Paul blatantly ignores the words of the Spirit through the disciples he was staying with. I tried to speak up in class but as of most times my thoughts do not translate to English so well so I thought I would blog about some of my thoughts. First of all I have to acknowledge that I have no clue, it is a mystery and anything I say past this point is only hypothetical.
The Spirit seems to be sending conflicting messages, first to Paul in chapter twenty when Paul exclaims, “And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there.” Paul is compelled by the Spirit and then in 21:4 it says, “Finding the disciples there, we stayed with them seven days. Through the Spirit they urged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem.” I do not understand. Possibly Paul had some crossed wires and misunderstood the Spirit to begin with people have attributed things to God before when they most certainly are not but this is Paul the apostle and it is scripture so that is hard to swallow. The disciples could have only been warning Paul because they knew what was going to happen. The noun Spirit is used as an instrument of urging. They could have been urging Paul by the means of love that they have from the Spirit. The deep compassion given them with the revelation that Paul was going to suffer all came from the Spirit and therefore they warned Paul. They may not have been actually giving him a command from the Spirit. Its all very confusing. Maybe God was giving Paul an option, Paul to can do this or you cannot and that’s why I’m giving you warnings to not go. Paul is not thwarted; he sticks to what the Spirit originally told him. I mean if it is a command not to go from the Spirit then did God change his mind? Paul did exclaim in 20:22 that he didn’t know what was going to happen to him and then he is told by the Prophet later in chapter 21. It seems that Paul’s fate is being revealed to him.
Back to the disciples who urged Paul not to go. They could have received the revelation that Paul was going to be bound but rather than leaving it at a revelation they went to Paul and urged him not to go and it was their urging not the Spirit’s. The text doesn’t support any of my ideas I’m pretty sure but I can hypothesize can’t I. I chalk it up to another mystery of God but some interesting Ideas can be conjectured.

Luke Luke Luke

Luke is such an interesting book to lookat in its structure. I have found through studying Mark and through looking at the other gospels the differences in the gospels that I have never noticed before. Two years ago if i were to read the gospels i would have just read their stories and never looked at the differences that each writer incorporated into their texts, and thats why I find Luke interesting in the aspects of the way he writes and puts more of an emphasis on women playing a role in Jesus ministry. It appears that each writer wanted to bring out different aspects of Jesus' ministry so that the readers would not just see certain aspects of Jesus' ministry but instead all of the aspects such as showing women in the roles they played.

Jesus, by any other name would sound as sweet

This class has really made me appreciate the differences in the 4 gospels. The 4 pictures that Burrage talks about really illustrate the different personality each gospel has. This makes sense because they are written by different people and for different audiences. I have always understood this, but lately I have really been picking up on and loving the small details that make a big difference. For example, the only time Jesus is called "Son of David" in Mark is by blind Bartimaeus, whereas in Matthew he is addressed as "Son of David" by crowds and people who needed healing numerous times. Matthew also calls him "son of Abraham" which to a Gentile audience would mean little, but to Jews this is the Father of their nation. This makes him a Jew and a king. Jesus is really only called "Jesus" by Matthew in narration. I wonder if this means anything in regard to Jesus' power because they address him with an honor bestowing title. This really has no relation to the plot of each story, but in the book as a whole, these unique qualities are amazing and I am excited that I will recognize them more now.

Mark Never Ends

I have been given the pleasure of exploring how the book of Mark ends. Mark is a greater writer than we give him credit for. Of all the papers I've written I've enjoyed doing the research for this one the most. I've examined the possibilities of all the endings of Mark from the short ending to the lost ending. After the research I've done and based upon my conclusions I find that I am leaning very strongly towards the ending at Mark 16:8. Mark uses his skill as a dynamic writer to leave his Gospel with a suspended ending. We all know what happens after verse eight or else the book wouldn't exist. Mark ends his Gospel in the same abrupt way as it began. When reading the ending in light of the beginning light is shed upon that fact. Other factors play into the supporting evidence of verse eight but I have shared one with you. If you do take the longer ending as authentic then I would like to leave you with a quote from Word Pictures in the New Testament by A. T. Robertson. "The great doubt concerning the genuiness of these verses renders it unwise to take these verses as the foundation for doctrine or practice unless supported by other and genuine portions of the N. T.

Criticism textual

Though i myself don't believe that textual criticism is the profession i am going to pursue, it does interest me in that some people can look at a text and see its genealogical family from the style, punctuation, ect. I am though thankful for it and even though sometimes it may bring about more questions than answers; thankfully our faith does not require the complete understanding of everything in the Bible.
I do like being at a place in life where hearing all the questions about scribal errors and old a new manuscripts don't rock my faith, but can confirm it though the amazing preservation of the Bible.

I like resting in the mystery of the word, which in a since is like trusting God, who we don't fully understand... i mean it is "His Word".

Long, short, tall or fat

Why does our Bible have to contain such an argued portion of text. Is someone against Christianity trying to mess with our theology? Is God trying to help us learn textual criticism? I don't see why this can't be a starting point for textual criticism in our Bible. It is very obvious the wording and theology is very different from the rest of Mark. Maybe such an obvious part would lead us to be textual critics of more of the text to gain understanding of maybe the attitude of the writer as he wrote it. Which do I accept as the ending of Mark? I believe it ends at verse 8 pure and simple. The following verses are different that the rest of all of Jesus' teachings. I do not agree with the testing of God by grabbing snakes. If Jesus would not test God in the wilderness in Matthew then why would he challenge us to do so? Is there more that we don't even have in our Bible? I agree with Aaron when he says that if God wanted it in the scriptures He would have preserved it. So for today i rest on the conclusion that Mark ends on verse 8.

Is there more? Does it matter?

After class monday I thought about what I believed about how Mark ends. I decided if I had to pick one of the five choices that it would be out of the three most popular ones. I'm not a fan of the Longer Ending because I just don't think it sounds like the rest of Mark. So that narrows it down to two. As I thought more about it I wondered, "what IF there was more?!" I thought about what was accidently lost could have been important. Only a few seconds later I decided that if there was more and it's content was important, God would have preserved it like He did the rest of the text.
It reminded me a question a girl in my youth group asked me not too long ago. She wanted to know what if there were other books that could have gone in the Bible that were lost. I told her the same answer I ended up telling myself about the end of Mark. If they belonged in the Bible they would be there.

-Aaron Abbott

Indiana Jones

I was very excited to hear about the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The whole thing is very interesting to me, and I definately believe that they were divinely preserved. It seems almost like an Indiana Jones thing to find hundreds of lost scrolls tucked safely in jars hidden in caves. I was even more impressed that the older copies found only served to confirm the copies that we already had. I am not sure these scrolls have the answer to the ending of Mark question, but I am sure they help answer many other questions. I have heard the Dead Sea scrolls mentioned before and I really wish some class would talk about it more to answer some questions. Was there extra testimental literature with these scrolls. If so, could we be wrong in thinking they weren't divinely inspired if earlier Christians did, etc? I suppose I should do some reading on my own to fully understand this amazing modern miracle that connected us to the earliest Believers.

The Ending Of Mark

Well after finishing the excellent book of Mark in great detail, I'm pretty dissapointed that we don't know what was really the end of Mark. I haven't really discussed this ending anywhere else probably cause the church kind of hides this, not exactly Sunday School material. Right now to me the longer ending sounds quite foolish cause of the drastic change in the way it was written. So I'm actually stuck between Mark 16:8 is the intended ending and that we can't find the real ending, which is diffucult to determine. Is it out of the question that Mark himself never finished the book? Maybe he didn't know how to end it, so handed in the manuscript as is? Is this out of the question? If anyone else has an idea of their own put it forward to me; I'd love to hear it.

"I'm like peter"

I loved the point mad in class about peter only having a few bad days. In our culture we seem to always focus more on negative aspects of things or people instead of positive qualities.

as noted in class we identify with the weakness of peter rather than his strength. But we do this with david too, in the oppposite way, we focus on him defeating the giant and leave out his shortcommings.

What i see in these men are ordinary people used inspite of themselves to accomplish extrordinary feats for the Lord. and that is how i want to relate to these men. GOd can use me, plain old, messed up, trying, me.

Everybody is a M. Night Shyamalan (We love the twist)

Mark's resurrection, assuming that it ends with 16:8, has been called incredibly negative and literary genius at the same time. I am a reader and I know that happy endings, as good as they make you feel, are not always inspiring. It is those movies and book that give you something unexpected or unfinished that leave you meditating on it all day.
The Dictionary addresses the kind of “fear” the women had and explained that it was awe not a fear of disobedience. Also, this is not the end, there is still Galilee. In Mark 14:28 he tells the disciples that after he was resurrected he will meet them in Galilee. Granted they had denied him and possible even lost faith, but I think I would hang out in Galilee for a few days just to be sure. The angel tells the women that he is going to Galilee (that’s a surprise) and that they would see him there.
This ending is not negative, it leaves the reader with anticipation of Galilee and the choice of what to do with their own fear and belief. Mark has this misunderstanding disciples theme, and the women do the same. Mark wants us to see and understand and not to fear.

Eschatology is for the birds!

Just some ramblings...

So, I guess the class discussion that I will be referring to took place sometime during the week before Spring Break, but I have really been pondereing it over during the past few weeks and have even talked to others about it. I think that the dialogue of Jesus in Mark 13 says a lot about the role of the Trinity within the Gospels. The simple fact that Jesus did not know the hour of the socond coming is astonishing and something that I will never understand. I also believe that some Christians today get too wrapped up in trying to learn about the signs leading up to and the exact time of the eschaton that we forget to do the things that are important now, such as making disciples and showing the love of Christ to others. Jesus tells the disciples to 'Stay Awake" (13:37). Forgive me for using an allegory (Please don't tell Gore), but perhaps we should also "stay awake" not to the signs of the end of the age, but to the commands and the ministry that we have been given.

-Steven

The ending of Mark

As i was reading the ending of Mark today for my readings it made me think yet again what i really think abou it. I know there are a lot of different view points on whether it is true or false, and i have always kind of just sat on the fence and never taken a side for what i believe. As I read it, I noticed something that i have never really thought about myself, those few verses just don't really sound like any of Mark. It's like why would Mark go on for 15 or so chapters sounding exactly alike and then in the last little bit he changes. It raises a lot of questions and I'm still on the fence, I'm looking forward to trying to get off the fence through this class.

Think BIG! Think STRONG!

In the first few verses of Mark chapter 16 we see that the Marys were heading to the tomb of Jesus to take care of His body as they would commonly do for all those who had died. The thing I found so interesting was that they contiplated which one of them was going to move this stone that was placed in front of the grave so that no one could get in there and take the body, to fake the resurrection of Jesus. They must have been thinking BIG and thinking STRONG of themselves to have even gone there to annoint the body. I really think it was there unknown faith in the LORD that He would give them the ability to roll the stone away so they could honor this great Man. We sometimes need to just think BIG and think STRONG when it comes to the service of the LORD for the LORD!

I often wonder if...........

I often wonder which disciple I would have been if I was one of Jesus original twelve. In class Monday as we talked about Judas and Peter, it amazed me at how awful these "men of God" followed him. I mean one helped the chief the priest and scribes capture Jesus and then the other practically spit in his face by denying him. I often wonder would I be one of these guys. It seems as though in my life I tend to see little bit of characteristics from both of these individual types. I might not deny Jesus with my mouth, but I do deny him with my life. People might hear my proclaim I am a Christian, but according to the way they see me living sometimes, I have never known him.

It amazes me that in our society today preachers, teachers, or just your normal run of the mill Christians can mess up one time and their lives be over. In recent years we have seen many preachers come under fire for ethical decisions they made(or didn't) and most of the time we do not see those preachers rebound.(except Jim Baker of course) See what amazes me about Peter is that he did rebound. That day changed Peter's life forever, as we know from scripture he went on to be one of the most influential preachers of all time. WOW! Maybe I do want to be like Peter, hopefully though I can use my past denials and move on.

Concerning the Death of Christ

Looking at the events surrounding Jesus' death, I am amazed. It is clear he was no mere man. When he was on the cross, the sky grew dark. Who else had a sign on his cross saying Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. In addition to all of this, when Jesus died the curtain in the temple was torning in two pieces from top to bottom. (I wonder how the pharisees handled that!) Then the earth shook and the bodies of many godly people were raised from the dead. According to Matthew, more believed than just one centurion. Matthew says other soldiers believed also.

Jesus did not go out of this world quietly. I wonder what the pharisees thought when all this happened. Were they like whoopsies..we just killed the real deal, or were they callous and hard? I wonder if any pharisees believed after this. Just imagine the stir this created! Your godly friend George was buried a week before, then you see him in town three days later. The God we serve is truly amazing! There is no limit to what he can do!

Which way to go, left or right?

God is so amazing. Peter denied knowing Jesus THREE times before the rooster crowed. The very thing Jesus called him to do, follow me. Highschool students in Columbine, CO had more guts than Peter did. Those students really did die with Christ. Peter, after seeing what he had done, breaks down into tears. He repented of his sinful act to become the eventual leader of the early church. We blame Peter so much, but think about how much he learned from this experience and was able to use later. There are two lessons i grab from the surface of this text. First, God is merciful and forgives us of our sin. If we are faithful he will use us to great things for his glory. Second, we should not bring ourselves down to depression like Judas did. Peter shows us how to learn from our mistakes and give God all the glory in the future. I will not make a statement that I would never deny Jesus like Peter was because I have never been faced with an environment like he was. I love God. I love Jesus. I want to be like Peter because he was a great preacher, learned from his mistakes, and gave the glory to God. Not to mention he was homeboys with Jesus.