Daily Scripture:
Mark 12:28 One of the Torah-teachers came up and heard them engaged in this discussion. Seeing that Yeshua answered them well, he asked him, “Which is the most important mitzvah of them all?” 29 Yeshua answered, “The most important is,
‘Sh’ma Yisra’el, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai echad [Hear, O Isra’el, the Lord our God, the Lord is one], 30 and you are to love Adonai your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your understanding and with all your strength.’[Mark 12:30 Deuteronomy 6:4–5]
31 The second is this:
‘You are to love your neighbor as yourself.’[Mark 12:31 Leviticus 19:18]
There is no other mitzvah greater than these.”
Prayer Tip:
What is at the center of your life? This question was brought to my attention a couple of weeks ago by a friend of mine. I have found that it is an important question. I’ve been asking myself: What am I making a priority? What am I willing to save or sacrifice for? What is most important to me?
I wonder if that was the legal expert’s motive when asking Jesus what the most important commandment was. Matthew said that he was testing Jesus, maybe trying to confuse him with a difficult question. In Mark, it reads as though perhaps he wants to know more about Jesus and what matters most to him, or what is at the center – the priority – of his life.
Interestingly, Jesus doesn’t name one but two commandments, both from the heart of the Jewish tradition. Love God with heart, mind, and soul (Deuteronomy 6:5) and love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18). Everything is wrapped up in these two commandments.
Jesus not only proclaims his center, but reveals the character of God, which is love. So simple, and yet difficult because loving means putting others first. It means sacrificing. It means being available to needs around us. All of this can be overwhelming, but thankfully, Jesus didn’t just preach it, he embodied it. May our prayers allow us to discover that we are the center of God’s love, and in that, we are called to be agents of grace to our neighbors.
Dear God,
In world full of distractions, pull us back to the center of your love and grace. Continue to reveal yourself in us, so we can be your hands and feet for the world, building upon your kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven. Amen. (Tino Herrera, Congregational Care Pastor)
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Sunday, January 28, 2018
I wonder if that was the legal expert’s motive when asking Jesus what the most important commandment was. Matthew said that he was testing Jesus, maybe trying to confuse him with a difficult question. In Mark, it reads as though perhaps he wants to know more about Jesus and what matters most to him, or what is at the center – the priority – of his life.
Interestingly, Jesus doesn’t name one but two commandments, both from the heart of the Jewish tradition. Love God with heart, mind, and soul (Deuteronomy 6:5) and love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18). Everything is wrapped up in these two commandments.
Jesus not only proclaims his center, but reveals the character of God, which is love. So simple, and yet difficult because loving means putting others first. It means sacrificing. It means being available to needs around us. All of this can be overwhelming, but thankfully, Jesus didn’t just preach it, he embodied it. May our prayers allow us to discover that we are the center of God’s love, and in that, we are called to be agents of grace to our neighbors.
Dear God,
In world full of distractions, pull us back to the center of your love and grace. Continue to reveal yourself in us, so we can be your hands and feet for the world, building upon your kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven. Amen. (Tino Herrera, Congregational Care Pastor)
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Sunday, January 28, 2018
"Christianity and Religions of the World 'Judaism'”
Mark 12:28 One of the Torah-teachers came up and heard them engaged in this discussion. Seeing that Yeshua answered them well, he asked him, “Which is the most important mitzvah of them all?” 29 Yeshua answered, “The most important is,
‘Sh’ma Yisra’el, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai echad [Hear, O Isra’el, the Lord our God, the Lord is one], 30 and you are to love Adonai your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your understanding and with all your strength.’[Mark 12:30 Deuteronomy 6:4–5]
31 The second is this:
‘You are to love your neighbor as yourself.’[Mark 12:31 Leviticus 19:18]
There is no other mitzvah greater than these.”
***
Questions in this GPS marked with an arrow bullet point are particularly recommended for group discussion. Group leaders may add other discussion questions, or substitute other questions for the marked ones, at their discretion.
***
"God’s covenant with Abraham"
Monday, 29 January 2018
Genesis 12:1 Now Adonai said to Avram, “Get yourself out of your country, away from your kinsmen and away from your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation, I will bless you, and I will make your name great; and you are to be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, but I will curse anyone who curses you; and by you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”, 15:1 Some time later the word of Adonai came to Avram in a vision: “Don’t be afraid, Avram. I am your protector; your reward will be very great.” 2 Avram replied, “Adonai, God, what good will your gifts be to me if I continue childless; and Eli‘ezer from Dammesek inherits my possessions? 3 You haven’t given me a child,” Avram continued, “so someone born in my house will be my heir.” 4 But the word of Adonai came to him: “This man will not be your heir. No, your heir will be a child from your own body.” 5 Then he brought him outside and said, “Look up at the sky, and count the stars — if you can count them! Your descendants will be that many!” 6 He believed in Adonai, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
***
God loved the human family and wanted to bless them. The early chapters of Genesis said, through a series of archetypal stories, that humans kept refusing to bless one another as God wanted. So God chose a people (Abram—later Abraham (cf. Genesis 17:5)—and his descendants. He often repeated his plan to bless the whole world through them (see also Genesis 18:18, 22:18, 28:14).
• God promised Abram a land, but when he died he was still a nomad. God promised that he’d become a great nation, but when he died that hope rested in his one son Isaac (cf. Hebrews 11:9-10, 13). Genesis 15:6 identified the key to Abraham’s good life—he “trusted the Lord.” In what ways have you learned to let your spiritual life rest, not so much on concrete human accomplishments and possessions, but on trust in God?
Ø With the promised blessings, God gave a great responsibility. Abram and his family were to be a channel through which God would bless all peoples on earth. What are some ways in which Abram’s ethnic descendants in the Jewish faith have blessed the world? Mentally list the blessings you believe you have received. In what ways have you been open to allowing God to bless others through you?
Prayer: Lord God, teach me how to trust you as Abraham did. And attune my heart to your call to me, as it was to Abraham, to use your blessings to bless others. Amen.
***
Chris Abel
Chris Abel is the Young Adults Pastor at Resurrection, and he describes himself as a "Pastor/Creative-type/Adventurer." A former atheist turned passionate follower of Christ, he completed his seminary education in Washington, DC. Before coming to Resurrection, Chris was a campus pastor near St. Louis, MO.
During the election season of 2014, I had the incredible luck of being a seminary student in Washington D.C.. If you remember, Mitt Romney, a Mormon, ran against President Obama, A Christian. I remember how often Mr. Romney’s religious background worked its way into day-to-day conversations. My Christian friends weren’t sure what to make of Mormonism. After all, Mormons took our Bible… and added a new section. It made me feel a little weird.
And then I remembered the Old Testament, also known as the Hebrew Bible. You know, the first Bible that we took... and added parts to.
Yeah. Pot, meet kettle.
I happened to be taking a class with Rabbi Jack Moline (who, according to Newsweek, was one of the most influential Rabbis in the country). He understood his Christian seminary students had a lot of questions, so he dedicated 45 minutes every class to Q&A. So I waited all week. Finally, when class rolled around, I asked the question that had been bothering me.
“Rabbi, Mormons have added to the Christian Bible and it makes me feel weird. But we Christians added to the Jewish Bible a long time ago. How do YOU feel about that?”
He laughed, thought for a second and responded, “Well, Chris, every movement needs something to build on.” He paused again, gathered himself, and continued. “If you build a movement on something shaky, it will eventually collapse. But if you build a movement on something of substance, you’ll have a shot to grow and flourish. What Christians have done to our text is build a movement on something beautiful. And I’ll take it as a compliment.”
The answer stuck with me. Because I realized that as a Christian, I knew very little about the religion we built ourselves on. So I waited until class was over and pitched the Rabbi an idea.
“Rabbi, I’m required to do a pastoral internship next year. Would you… take a Christian as an intern?”
The idea intrigued him, (and I have some web and graphic design skills I offered to the synagogue), so we eventually worked it out. So for the last year of seminary I attended Shabbat services every Saturday. I wore a kippah on my head, I watched a circumcision go down, sat through a six-hour passover, ate a lot of bagels and lox, kissed the torah scroll every week, attended a Jewish graveside service at Arlington National Cemetery, and had a lot of interesting conversations in the Rabbi’s office. They even let me teach on multiple occasions, known as sharing the D’var Torah, or “Word of Torah.”
I loved every minute of it. But the biggest thing I took away from that year was this:
Our Jewish brothers and sisters own their sacred text.
And I mean OWN IT. When a young Jewish boy or girl is being taught to read the Bible, they aren’t taught to simply obey it or believe the right theology. They’re taught to wrestle with it. See, to this community, the Bible isn’t a fragile book to put on a pedestal to keep safe. The Bible is meant to dig into, to debate, to savor and play with. It is full of wordplay and humor, rawness and drama. The Bible is a story about humanity and how God called this special people through mess after mess, impacting the world as they went.
It made me even more dedicated to my own faith—to the Messiah who wrestled and debated and taught like a good Jew. And I’ll forever be grateful to a Rabbi who took a Christian seminary student under his wing.
Tuesday, 30 January 2018
Exodus 24:7 Then he took the book of the covenant and read it aloud, so that the people could hear; and they responded, “Everything that Adonai has spoken, we will do and obey.”, 34:(vii) 27 Adonai said to Moshe, “Write these words down, because they are the terms of the covenant I have made with you and with Isra’el.” 28 Moshe was there with Adonai forty days and forty nights, during which time he neither ate food nor drank water. [Adonai] wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Words.
29 When Moshe came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, he didn’t realize that the skin of his face was sending out rays of light as a result of his talking with [Adonai]. 30 When Aharon and the people of Isra’el saw Moshe, the skin of his face was shining; and they were afraid to approach him. 31 But Moshe called to them; then Aharon and all the community leaders came back to him, and Moshe spoke to them. 32 Afterwards, all the people of Isra’el came near; and he passed on to them all the orders that Adonai had told him on Mount Sinai.
(Maftir) 33 Once Moshe had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face. 34 But when he went in before Adonai for him to speak, he would take the veil off until he came out; then, when he came out, he would tell the people of Isra’el what he had been ordered. 35 But when the people of Isra’el saw Moshe’s face, that the skin of Moshe’s face shone, he would put the veil back over his face until he went in again to speak with [Adonai].
***
Written on stone, the Ten Commandments were the “covenant document” stored in the Ark of the Covenant. But as the reference to a “covenant scroll” showed, the Hebrew Scriptures added a wide variety of other rules and commands. With blood and solemn promises, Israel said they accepted their covenant with God. Sadly, they would learn all too soon that it was much easier to say, “Everything that the LORD has said we will do, and we will obey” than it was to actually live that out.
• “In Judaism…the primary goal is obedience to the covenant that God made with Moses and the people. Here is how Rabbi [Mark] Levin puts it: Judaism is morality. It is God’s revelation through inspiration of how to spend our lives being God’s servants.” * What positives spring from a deep desire to live out God’s principles? What is the spiritual hazard of believing that falling short of fully living out those principles cuts us off from God?
• Abraham’s descendants’ history did not match their brave words when Moses read the covenant scroll. As Pastor Hamilton wrote, “I will summarize it as the great theologian and scholar Albert Outler once did: The Hebrew Bible is the story of covenant-making and covenant-breaking…. the Scriptures record generation after generation who fall away from God.” ** January is nearly over. Have any of your fine 2018 resolutions already fallen by the wayside? What makes it hard for us to live up to even our best intentions?
Prayer: O Lord, give me the desire to live my life in total obedience to you. Give me your mercy when I fall short of the good I desire. Amen.
* Adam Hamilton, Christianity and World Religions. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005, pp. 95.
** Ibid., p. 91.
***
Brandon Gregory
Brandon Gregory is a volunteer for the worship and missions teams at Church of the Resurrection. He helps lead worship at Vibe, West and Downtown services, and is involved with the Malawi missions team at home.
I’ve worked with creative professionals for most of my life. I was a web designer for eight years, and a hiring manager of web designers for five of those. I’ve been playing music in bands for 21 years. I’m a professional writer and now also an editor for a publication in the web industry. I work with a wide array of creative types. And when they’re first starting out, there’s something I see nearly all of them do. They immediately want to start thinking outside of the box, throwing tradition and common practices out the window to do something drastically different. They want to glance over the basics and skip straight to advanced topics, doing things that have never been done before. I see many, many creative people make this leap, and it’s always a sign of inexperience and immaturity in the craft.
This revelation doesn’t serve to stifle creative expression—it redirects it, refines it, and makes it more effective. Creative expression is most meaningful when it influences others, and the most influential creative types I see in any medium are the people who have absolutely mastered the basics, and still care about adhering to them after years of practice. The masters of their crafts never move past basic principles—they just find more effective ways of applying them.
In our faith, we can often behave much like the inexperienced creative types I talked about above, eagerly skipping over the basics in search of more exciting and complex expressions. Maybe we only get excited about deeply emotional worship experiences, or complex abstract theological concepts, or exploring the minute details of even the most inane moral quandaries. These things are fine—there’s nothing wrong with them—but we’re completely missing the point if we don’t start every day with a firm grasp on the basics.
Morality is the most basic level of our faith, and that’s how God began his covenant with humanity. The Old Testament stories have many things to teach us, but they all drive home the importance of obedience, and the danger of ignoring it. There are actually a lot of highly abstract and complex concepts explored in the Bible, but they’re all built on a foundation of holy living.
Each day, we need to be grounded in God’s teachings to be the best, most loving versions of ourselves. (Hint: If you’re reading this and immediately thinking about how other people are failing, you’re doing it wrong.) The point isn’t to ignore deeper topics; it’s to make sure you’re ready for them. The basics of love and morality may not be the most exciting parts of our faith, but they are undoubtedly some of the most important. Spend some time each day realigning yourself to them and you’ll be amazed to see how it empowers you for the deeper parts too.
***
"God’s covenant with David and his descendants"
Wednesday, 31 January 2018
2 Samuel 7: 8 “Therefore say this to my servant David that this is what Adonai-Tzva’ot says: ‘I took you from the sheep-yards, from following the sheep, to make you chief over my people, over Isra’el. 9 I have been with you wherever you went; I have destroyed all your enemies ahead of you; and I am making your reputation great, like the reputations of the greatest people on earth. 10 I will assign a place to my people Isra’el; I will plant them there, so that they can live in their own place without being disturbed any more. The wicked will no longer oppress them, as they did at the beginning, 11 and as they did from the time I ordered judges to be over my people Isra’el; instead, I will give you rest from all your enemies.
“‘Moreover, Adonai tells you that Adonai will make you a house. 12 When your days come to an end and you sleep with your ancestors, I will establish one of your descendants to succeed you, one of your own flesh and blood; and I will set up his rulership. 13 He will build a house for my name, and I will establish his royal throne forever. 14 I will be a father for him, and he will be a son for me. If he does something wrong, I will punish him with a rod and blows, just as everyone gets punished;15 nevertheless, my grace will not leave him, as I took it away from Sha’ul, whom I removed from before you. 16 Thus your house and your kingdom will be made secure forever before you; your throne will be set up forever.’”, Psalm 89:3. .(2) because I said, “Grace is built to last forever;
in the heavens themselves you established your faithfulness.”
4 (3) You said, “I made a covenant with the one I chose,
I swore to my servant David,
5 (4) ‘I will establish your dynasty forever,
build up your throne through all generations.’” (Selah)
***
The prophet Nathan delivered the covenant promise in 2 Samuel 7 to Israel’s King David on God’s behalf. The promise at first seemed to describe David’s son, who became King Solomon. For roughly 400 years, descendants of David were kings, though many of them were physical but not spiritual heirs of David. That history made it clear no human king could fully live up to God’s sweeping promise.
• The prophet Jeremiah ministered when Babylon’s growing power seemed increasingly likely to break the succession of Israelite kings. He warned that bad human choices could lead to even God not being able to fulfil previous promises (cf. Jeremiah 18:7-10). In what ways did shortsighted choices by Davidic kings lead to the breaking of their line in 587 B.C.E.? Did that make the promise that “Your throne will be established forever” false?
• God did not forget the promise to David. In Luke 1:32-33, we read that the angel who appeared to Mary told her that she would bear no ordinary boy: “The Lord God will give him the throne of David his father. He will rule over Jacob’s house forever, and there will be no end to his kingdom.” The Savior, God’s Messiah (“anointed one”) descended from David, and would reign forever (cf. also Isaiah 9:6-7). How did the angel’s words cast light on why both Matthew and Luke included genealogies in their story of Jesus?
Prayer: Lord Jesus, you were born much as I was—into a family, into a town. Yet you were and are so much more. I look forward to following and serving you forever. Amen.
***
Wendy Connelly
Wendy Connelly is wife to Mark, mom to two kids and a seminary student at Saint Paul School of Theology. She will be leading the "Christianity and World Religions Immersion" this month for Resurrection Downtown.
As I read Hebrew Bible passages like today’s scripture from 2 Samuel 7, I often wrestle with how to interpret them in a way that is faithful to their Jewish roots, while also understanding them in light of Christ. For Jews and Christians alike, there is a lot at stake about today’s Scripture proclaiming a Davidic king, and a lot we simply don’t know.
Understood in its most literal form, today’s passage seems to point toward David’s son, Solomon, as the descendant-king whose throne would last forever. This reading affirms a Davidic covenant, a promise of land to the Jewish people. After the devastation of the Babylonian Exile, their land taken, this kingly figure was considered to be a future messiah who would restore the land of Israel. Even today, whether we interpret this promise literally or more spiritually has implications that affect world politics. Not all Jews interpret this passage in the same way; neither do all Christians.
Looked at in light of Christ, the same passage speaks of another kingly descendant of David: Jesus of Nazareth.* Indeed, much of the New Testament points back to 2 Samuel 7, a prophetic hinge of scripture, as presaging Christ the King. Even the angel, Gabriel, reaches back to this scripture in his annunciation to Mary:
“Look! You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus… The Lord God will give him the throne of David his father. He will rule over Jacob’s house forever, and there will be no end to his kingdom.” (Luke 1:31, 33)
However one chooses to interpret this passage (Solomon, a future messiah or Jesus; literal or spiritual; either/or or both/and), here’s its good news: history is going somewhere, and God is in the details. While Christians uniquely proclaim Christ as King, in this much we can all agree:
God wishes to repair the world: Tikkun Olam.
Heaven will meet earth. Thy kingdom, come.
And the entire world will be blessed through the Son of David.
*Note: The New Testament interpretation pointing toward Jesus required some selective reading, ignoring part of verse 14—“Whenever he does wrong, I will discipline him with a human rod, with blows from human beings”—since Jesus was without sin. But most New Testament authors read selectively, and even allegorized parts of the Hebrew Bible to make specific claims. The original reference to wrongdoing would not have undermined this interpretation—or, for that matter, raised an eyebrow.
***
"Jesus, David’s 'son,' claimed the new covenant"
Thursday, 1 February 2018
Jeremiah 31:30 (31) “Here, the days are coming,” says Adonai, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Isra’el and with the house of Y’hudah. 31 (32) It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers on the day I took them by their hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt; because they, for their part, violated my covenant, even though I, for my part, was a husband to them,” says Adonai. 32 (33) “For this is the covenant I will make with the house of Isra’el after those days,” says Adonai: “I will put my Torahwithin them and write it on their hearts; I will be their God, and they will be my people. 33 (34) No longer will any of them teach his fellow community member or his brother, ‘Know Adonai’; for all will know me, from the least of them to the greatest; because I will forgive their wickednesses and remember their sins no more.”
34 (35) This is what Adonai says,
who gives the sun as light for the day,
who ordained the laws for the moon and stars
to provide light for the night,
who stirs up the sea until its waves roar —
Adonai-Tzva’ot is his name:, 1 Corinthians 11:23 For what I received from the Lord is just what I passed on to you — that the Lord Yeshua, on the night he was betrayed, took bread; 24 and after he had made the b’rakhah he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this as a memorial to me”; 25 likewise also the cup after the meal, saying, “This cup is the New Covenant effected by my blood; do this, as often as you drink it, as a memorial to me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord, until he comes.
***
The prophet Jeremiah grieved over Israel’s Faithlessness, which was leading to judgment and exile. But he also looked to a hopeful future based on God’s mercy. He said God pledged to “engrave” his instructions on each heart that was open to God’s love. Then he added God’s merciful promise: “I will forgive their wrongdoing and never again remember their sins.”
Ø Jeremiah linked God “engraving” God’s instructions on our hearts (an echo of the stone tablets on which God engraved the 10 Commandments—saw the God he had always loved at work in the lives of his converts, he saw God’s activity not as destroying the faith in which he had grown up, but as enlarging the family of Abraham and carrying out the promise to bless all nations. Even some Jewish Christians struggled to accept that (cf. Acts 15). He rejoiced that God had called him to devote his life to bringing more and more of God’s children into the covenant family.
• Sometimes at a communion service, we hear Jesus’ words, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood” without sensing their import. But he was pointing back to Jeremiah’s promise. He was saying, as scholar William Barclay translated it, “This cup is the new covenant and it cost my blood.” * How can you deepen your worship experience at communion by recognizing it as the symbol Jesus chose for his “new covenant” bond with you?
Prayer: Lord Jesus, you don’t want a casual, come-and-go connection with me. You shed your blood to invite me into an enduring covenant. Help me to whole-heartedly accept. Amen.
* William Barclay, Daily Study Bible Series: The Letters to the Corinthians (Revised Edition). Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1975, p. 103.
***
Matt Ozment
Matt is the Media Services Production Manager in the Tech Arts ministry at Church of the Resurrection. He joined the staff in December 2014 and supports the technology needs of each special or weekly event outside of weekend worship at Resurrection Leawood. In his free time, he spends time with his 2 kids, supports his wife’s cake business, and aspires to be a novelist.In two weeks I will be traveling to Israel with 45 other Young Adults from Resurrection to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, learning and seeing for the first time what He saw and where He stood. To say I’m excited to take this pilgrimage would be an understatement.
The other day, I was explaining this trip to my five-year-old daughter. I mentioned that I will go to Jerusalem, Capernaum, the Sea of Galilee, and Bethlehem. This last place caught her attention.
“Bethlehem?” she asked excitedly, her interest piqued. “You’re going where Jesus was born?"
“Yes,” I said, adoring the fact that she recognized this from her Sunday School classes.
“Will you see the manger?”
This was a little trickier to explain. “Well, the manger isn’t really there anymore. But I will see where it was.”
As expected, this confused her a little bit. “But where is baby Jesus then?”
“Well, he’s all grown up now,” I answered.
Her eyes lit up. “Oh! Well, if he’s all grown up, maybe he’ll find you when he’s walking around Bethlehem.”
I loved this. The simple faith of a child. Jesus is so unquestionably present to her that she envisions him as quite literally walking around teaching and healing today. I pray that she never loses sight of that kind of faith.
This is a very simple outlook on Jesus’ covenant for us. He is looking for us. He is always there, available for anybody (not just the physical descendants of Abraham). By engraving his instructions on our hearts, he is seeking a personal relationship with us, something more than a set of rules carved on stone tablets.
I wonder how many of us know someone who won’t come to church because they feel like it’s an exclusive club--that you have to be born into it, or have to make a commitment much earlier in life. Maybe you yourself feel that way. Jesus’ new covenant is a sign that Christianity, the path to God, the path to Heaven, is for anybody and everybody. God, the creator of every one of us, is searching and waiting for us to come to him, ready to have and build a relationship.
***
Mark 12:28 One of the Torah-teachers came up and heard them engaged in this discussion. Seeing that Yeshua answered them well, he asked him, “Which is the most important mitzvah of them all?” 29 Yeshua answered, “The most important is,
‘Sh’ma Yisra’el, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai echad [Hear, O Isra’el, the Lord our God, the Lord is one], 30 and you are to love Adonai your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your understanding and with all your strength.’[Mark 12:30 Deuteronomy 6:4–5]
31 The second is this:
‘You are to love your neighbor as yourself.’[Mark 12:31 Leviticus 19:18]
There is no other mitzvah greater than these.”
***
Questions in this GPS marked with an arrow bullet point are particularly recommended for group discussion. Group leaders may add other discussion questions, or substitute other questions for the marked ones, at their discretion.
***
"God’s covenant with Abraham"
Monday, 29 January 2018
Genesis 12:1 Now Adonai said to Avram, “Get yourself out of your country, away from your kinsmen and away from your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation, I will bless you, and I will make your name great; and you are to be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, but I will curse anyone who curses you; and by you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”, 15:1 Some time later the word of Adonai came to Avram in a vision: “Don’t be afraid, Avram. I am your protector; your reward will be very great.” 2 Avram replied, “Adonai, God, what good will your gifts be to me if I continue childless; and Eli‘ezer from Dammesek inherits my possessions? 3 You haven’t given me a child,” Avram continued, “so someone born in my house will be my heir.” 4 But the word of Adonai came to him: “This man will not be your heir. No, your heir will be a child from your own body.” 5 Then he brought him outside and said, “Look up at the sky, and count the stars — if you can count them! Your descendants will be that many!” 6 He believed in Adonai, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
***
God loved the human family and wanted to bless them. The early chapters of Genesis said, through a series of archetypal stories, that humans kept refusing to bless one another as God wanted. So God chose a people (Abram—later Abraham (cf. Genesis 17:5)—and his descendants. He often repeated his plan to bless the whole world through them (see also Genesis 18:18, 22:18, 28:14).
• God promised Abram a land, but when he died he was still a nomad. God promised that he’d become a great nation, but when he died that hope rested in his one son Isaac (cf. Hebrews 11:9-10, 13). Genesis 15:6 identified the key to Abraham’s good life—he “trusted the Lord.” In what ways have you learned to let your spiritual life rest, not so much on concrete human accomplishments and possessions, but on trust in God?
Ø With the promised blessings, God gave a great responsibility. Abram and his family were to be a channel through which God would bless all peoples on earth. What are some ways in which Abram’s ethnic descendants in the Jewish faith have blessed the world? Mentally list the blessings you believe you have received. In what ways have you been open to allowing God to bless others through you?
Prayer: Lord God, teach me how to trust you as Abraham did. And attune my heart to your call to me, as it was to Abraham, to use your blessings to bless others. Amen.
***
Chris AbelChris Abel is the Young Adults Pastor at Resurrection, and he describes himself as a "Pastor/Creative-type/Adventurer." A former atheist turned passionate follower of Christ, he completed his seminary education in Washington, DC. Before coming to Resurrection, Chris was a campus pastor near St. Louis, MO.
During the election season of 2014, I had the incredible luck of being a seminary student in Washington D.C.. If you remember, Mitt Romney, a Mormon, ran against President Obama, A Christian. I remember how often Mr. Romney’s religious background worked its way into day-to-day conversations. My Christian friends weren’t sure what to make of Mormonism. After all, Mormons took our Bible… and added a new section. It made me feel a little weird.
And then I remembered the Old Testament, also known as the Hebrew Bible. You know, the first Bible that we took... and added parts to.
Yeah. Pot, meet kettle.
I happened to be taking a class with Rabbi Jack Moline (who, according to Newsweek, was one of the most influential Rabbis in the country). He understood his Christian seminary students had a lot of questions, so he dedicated 45 minutes every class to Q&A. So I waited all week. Finally, when class rolled around, I asked the question that had been bothering me.
“Rabbi, Mormons have added to the Christian Bible and it makes me feel weird. But we Christians added to the Jewish Bible a long time ago. How do YOU feel about that?”
He laughed, thought for a second and responded, “Well, Chris, every movement needs something to build on.” He paused again, gathered himself, and continued. “If you build a movement on something shaky, it will eventually collapse. But if you build a movement on something of substance, you’ll have a shot to grow and flourish. What Christians have done to our text is build a movement on something beautiful. And I’ll take it as a compliment.”
The answer stuck with me. Because I realized that as a Christian, I knew very little about the religion we built ourselves on. So I waited until class was over and pitched the Rabbi an idea.
“Rabbi, I’m required to do a pastoral internship next year. Would you… take a Christian as an intern?”
The idea intrigued him, (and I have some web and graphic design skills I offered to the synagogue), so we eventually worked it out. So for the last year of seminary I attended Shabbat services every Saturday. I wore a kippah on my head, I watched a circumcision go down, sat through a six-hour passover, ate a lot of bagels and lox, kissed the torah scroll every week, attended a Jewish graveside service at Arlington National Cemetery, and had a lot of interesting conversations in the Rabbi’s office. They even let me teach on multiple occasions, known as sharing the D’var Torah, or “Word of Torah.”
I loved every minute of it. But the biggest thing I took away from that year was this:
Our Jewish brothers and sisters own their sacred text.
And I mean OWN IT. When a young Jewish boy or girl is being taught to read the Bible, they aren’t taught to simply obey it or believe the right theology. They’re taught to wrestle with it. See, to this community, the Bible isn’t a fragile book to put on a pedestal to keep safe. The Bible is meant to dig into, to debate, to savor and play with. It is full of wordplay and humor, rawness and drama. The Bible is a story about humanity and how God called this special people through mess after mess, impacting the world as they went.
It made me even more dedicated to my own faith—to the Messiah who wrestled and debated and taught like a good Jew. And I’ll forever be grateful to a Rabbi who took a Christian seminary student under his wing.
***
"A covenant based on obedience"Tuesday, 30 January 2018
Exodus 24:7 Then he took the book of the covenant and read it aloud, so that the people could hear; and they responded, “Everything that Adonai has spoken, we will do and obey.”, 34:(vii) 27 Adonai said to Moshe, “Write these words down, because they are the terms of the covenant I have made with you and with Isra’el.” 28 Moshe was there with Adonai forty days and forty nights, during which time he neither ate food nor drank water. [Adonai] wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Words.
29 When Moshe came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, he didn’t realize that the skin of his face was sending out rays of light as a result of his talking with [Adonai]. 30 When Aharon and the people of Isra’el saw Moshe, the skin of his face was shining; and they were afraid to approach him. 31 But Moshe called to them; then Aharon and all the community leaders came back to him, and Moshe spoke to them. 32 Afterwards, all the people of Isra’el came near; and he passed on to them all the orders that Adonai had told him on Mount Sinai.
(Maftir) 33 Once Moshe had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face. 34 But when he went in before Adonai for him to speak, he would take the veil off until he came out; then, when he came out, he would tell the people of Isra’el what he had been ordered. 35 But when the people of Isra’el saw Moshe’s face, that the skin of Moshe’s face shone, he would put the veil back over his face until he went in again to speak with [Adonai].
***
Written on stone, the Ten Commandments were the “covenant document” stored in the Ark of the Covenant. But as the reference to a “covenant scroll” showed, the Hebrew Scriptures added a wide variety of other rules and commands. With blood and solemn promises, Israel said they accepted their covenant with God. Sadly, they would learn all too soon that it was much easier to say, “Everything that the LORD has said we will do, and we will obey” than it was to actually live that out.
• “In Judaism…the primary goal is obedience to the covenant that God made with Moses and the people. Here is how Rabbi [Mark] Levin puts it: Judaism is morality. It is God’s revelation through inspiration of how to spend our lives being God’s servants.” * What positives spring from a deep desire to live out God’s principles? What is the spiritual hazard of believing that falling short of fully living out those principles cuts us off from God?
• Abraham’s descendants’ history did not match their brave words when Moses read the covenant scroll. As Pastor Hamilton wrote, “I will summarize it as the great theologian and scholar Albert Outler once did: The Hebrew Bible is the story of covenant-making and covenant-breaking…. the Scriptures record generation after generation who fall away from God.” ** January is nearly over. Have any of your fine 2018 resolutions already fallen by the wayside? What makes it hard for us to live up to even our best intentions?
Prayer: O Lord, give me the desire to live my life in total obedience to you. Give me your mercy when I fall short of the good I desire. Amen.
* Adam Hamilton, Christianity and World Religions. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005, pp. 95.
** Ibid., p. 91.
***
Brandon GregoryBrandon Gregory is a volunteer for the worship and missions teams at Church of the Resurrection. He helps lead worship at Vibe, West and Downtown services, and is involved with the Malawi missions team at home.
I’ve worked with creative professionals for most of my life. I was a web designer for eight years, and a hiring manager of web designers for five of those. I’ve been playing music in bands for 21 years. I’m a professional writer and now also an editor for a publication in the web industry. I work with a wide array of creative types. And when they’re first starting out, there’s something I see nearly all of them do. They immediately want to start thinking outside of the box, throwing tradition and common practices out the window to do something drastically different. They want to glance over the basics and skip straight to advanced topics, doing things that have never been done before. I see many, many creative people make this leap, and it’s always a sign of inexperience and immaturity in the craft.
This revelation doesn’t serve to stifle creative expression—it redirects it, refines it, and makes it more effective. Creative expression is most meaningful when it influences others, and the most influential creative types I see in any medium are the people who have absolutely mastered the basics, and still care about adhering to them after years of practice. The masters of their crafts never move past basic principles—they just find more effective ways of applying them.
In our faith, we can often behave much like the inexperienced creative types I talked about above, eagerly skipping over the basics in search of more exciting and complex expressions. Maybe we only get excited about deeply emotional worship experiences, or complex abstract theological concepts, or exploring the minute details of even the most inane moral quandaries. These things are fine—there’s nothing wrong with them—but we’re completely missing the point if we don’t start every day with a firm grasp on the basics.
Morality is the most basic level of our faith, and that’s how God began his covenant with humanity. The Old Testament stories have many things to teach us, but they all drive home the importance of obedience, and the danger of ignoring it. There are actually a lot of highly abstract and complex concepts explored in the Bible, but they’re all built on a foundation of holy living.
Each day, we need to be grounded in God’s teachings to be the best, most loving versions of ourselves. (Hint: If you’re reading this and immediately thinking about how other people are failing, you’re doing it wrong.) The point isn’t to ignore deeper topics; it’s to make sure you’re ready for them. The basics of love and morality may not be the most exciting parts of our faith, but they are undoubtedly some of the most important. Spend some time each day realigning yourself to them and you’ll be amazed to see how it empowers you for the deeper parts too.
***
"God’s covenant with David and his descendants"
Wednesday, 31 January 2018
2 Samuel 7: 8 “Therefore say this to my servant David that this is what Adonai-Tzva’ot says: ‘I took you from the sheep-yards, from following the sheep, to make you chief over my people, over Isra’el. 9 I have been with you wherever you went; I have destroyed all your enemies ahead of you; and I am making your reputation great, like the reputations of the greatest people on earth. 10 I will assign a place to my people Isra’el; I will plant them there, so that they can live in their own place without being disturbed any more. The wicked will no longer oppress them, as they did at the beginning, 11 and as they did from the time I ordered judges to be over my people Isra’el; instead, I will give you rest from all your enemies.
“‘Moreover, Adonai tells you that Adonai will make you a house. 12 When your days come to an end and you sleep with your ancestors, I will establish one of your descendants to succeed you, one of your own flesh and blood; and I will set up his rulership. 13 He will build a house for my name, and I will establish his royal throne forever. 14 I will be a father for him, and he will be a son for me. If he does something wrong, I will punish him with a rod and blows, just as everyone gets punished;15 nevertheless, my grace will not leave him, as I took it away from Sha’ul, whom I removed from before you. 16 Thus your house and your kingdom will be made secure forever before you; your throne will be set up forever.’”, Psalm 89:3. .(2) because I said, “Grace is built to last forever;
in the heavens themselves you established your faithfulness.”
4 (3) You said, “I made a covenant with the one I chose,
I swore to my servant David,
5 (4) ‘I will establish your dynasty forever,
build up your throne through all generations.’” (Selah)
***
The prophet Nathan delivered the covenant promise in 2 Samuel 7 to Israel’s King David on God’s behalf. The promise at first seemed to describe David’s son, who became King Solomon. For roughly 400 years, descendants of David were kings, though many of them were physical but not spiritual heirs of David. That history made it clear no human king could fully live up to God’s sweeping promise.
• The prophet Jeremiah ministered when Babylon’s growing power seemed increasingly likely to break the succession of Israelite kings. He warned that bad human choices could lead to even God not being able to fulfil previous promises (cf. Jeremiah 18:7-10). In what ways did shortsighted choices by Davidic kings lead to the breaking of their line in 587 B.C.E.? Did that make the promise that “Your throne will be established forever” false?
• God did not forget the promise to David. In Luke 1:32-33, we read that the angel who appeared to Mary told her that she would bear no ordinary boy: “The Lord God will give him the throne of David his father. He will rule over Jacob’s house forever, and there will be no end to his kingdom.” The Savior, God’s Messiah (“anointed one”) descended from David, and would reign forever (cf. also Isaiah 9:6-7). How did the angel’s words cast light on why both Matthew and Luke included genealogies in their story of Jesus?
Prayer: Lord Jesus, you were born much as I was—into a family, into a town. Yet you were and are so much more. I look forward to following and serving you forever. Amen.
***
Wendy ConnellyWendy Connelly is wife to Mark, mom to two kids and a seminary student at Saint Paul School of Theology. She will be leading the "Christianity and World Religions Immersion" this month for Resurrection Downtown.
As I read Hebrew Bible passages like today’s scripture from 2 Samuel 7, I often wrestle with how to interpret them in a way that is faithful to their Jewish roots, while also understanding them in light of Christ. For Jews and Christians alike, there is a lot at stake about today’s Scripture proclaiming a Davidic king, and a lot we simply don’t know.
Understood in its most literal form, today’s passage seems to point toward David’s son, Solomon, as the descendant-king whose throne would last forever. This reading affirms a Davidic covenant, a promise of land to the Jewish people. After the devastation of the Babylonian Exile, their land taken, this kingly figure was considered to be a future messiah who would restore the land of Israel. Even today, whether we interpret this promise literally or more spiritually has implications that affect world politics. Not all Jews interpret this passage in the same way; neither do all Christians.
Looked at in light of Christ, the same passage speaks of another kingly descendant of David: Jesus of Nazareth.* Indeed, much of the New Testament points back to 2 Samuel 7, a prophetic hinge of scripture, as presaging Christ the King. Even the angel, Gabriel, reaches back to this scripture in his annunciation to Mary:
“Look! You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus… The Lord God will give him the throne of David his father. He will rule over Jacob’s house forever, and there will be no end to his kingdom.” (Luke 1:31, 33)
However one chooses to interpret this passage (Solomon, a future messiah or Jesus; literal or spiritual; either/or or both/and), here’s its good news: history is going somewhere, and God is in the details. While Christians uniquely proclaim Christ as King, in this much we can all agree:
God wishes to repair the world: Tikkun Olam.
Heaven will meet earth. Thy kingdom, come.
And the entire world will be blessed through the Son of David.
*Note: The New Testament interpretation pointing toward Jesus required some selective reading, ignoring part of verse 14—“Whenever he does wrong, I will discipline him with a human rod, with blows from human beings”—since Jesus was without sin. But most New Testament authors read selectively, and even allegorized parts of the Hebrew Bible to make specific claims. The original reference to wrongdoing would not have undermined this interpretation—or, for that matter, raised an eyebrow.
***
"Jesus, David’s 'son,' claimed the new covenant"
Thursday, 1 February 2018
Jeremiah 31:30 (31) “Here, the days are coming,” says Adonai, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Isra’el and with the house of Y’hudah. 31 (32) It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers on the day I took them by their hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt; because they, for their part, violated my covenant, even though I, for my part, was a husband to them,” says Adonai. 32 (33) “For this is the covenant I will make with the house of Isra’el after those days,” says Adonai: “I will put my Torahwithin them and write it on their hearts; I will be their God, and they will be my people. 33 (34) No longer will any of them teach his fellow community member or his brother, ‘Know Adonai’; for all will know me, from the least of them to the greatest; because I will forgive their wickednesses and remember their sins no more.”
34 (35) This is what Adonai says,
who gives the sun as light for the day,
who ordained the laws for the moon and stars
to provide light for the night,
who stirs up the sea until its waves roar —
Adonai-Tzva’ot is his name:, 1 Corinthians 11:23 For what I received from the Lord is just what I passed on to you — that the Lord Yeshua, on the night he was betrayed, took bread; 24 and after he had made the b’rakhah he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this as a memorial to me”; 25 likewise also the cup after the meal, saying, “This cup is the New Covenant effected by my blood; do this, as often as you drink it, as a memorial to me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord, until he comes.
***
The prophet Jeremiah grieved over Israel’s Faithlessness, which was leading to judgment and exile. But he also looked to a hopeful future based on God’s mercy. He said God pledged to “engrave” his instructions on each heart that was open to God’s love. Then he added God’s merciful promise: “I will forgive their wrongdoing and never again remember their sins.”
Ø Jeremiah linked God “engraving” God’s instructions on our hearts (an echo of the stone tablets on which God engraved the 10 Commandments—saw the God he had always loved at work in the lives of his converts, he saw God’s activity not as destroying the faith in which he had grown up, but as enlarging the family of Abraham and carrying out the promise to bless all nations. Even some Jewish Christians struggled to accept that (cf. Acts 15). He rejoiced that God had called him to devote his life to bringing more and more of God’s children into the covenant family.
• Sometimes at a communion service, we hear Jesus’ words, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood” without sensing their import. But he was pointing back to Jeremiah’s promise. He was saying, as scholar William Barclay translated it, “This cup is the new covenant and it cost my blood.” * How can you deepen your worship experience at communion by recognizing it as the symbol Jesus chose for his “new covenant” bond with you?
Prayer: Lord Jesus, you don’t want a casual, come-and-go connection with me. You shed your blood to invite me into an enduring covenant. Help me to whole-heartedly accept. Amen.
* William Barclay, Daily Study Bible Series: The Letters to the Corinthians (Revised Edition). Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1975, p. 103.
***
Matt OzmentMatt is the Media Services Production Manager in the Tech Arts ministry at Church of the Resurrection. He joined the staff in December 2014 and supports the technology needs of each special or weekly event outside of weekend worship at Resurrection Leawood. In his free time, he spends time with his 2 kids, supports his wife’s cake business, and aspires to be a novelist.In two weeks I will be traveling to Israel with 45 other Young Adults from Resurrection to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, learning and seeing for the first time what He saw and where He stood. To say I’m excited to take this pilgrimage would be an understatement.
The other day, I was explaining this trip to my five-year-old daughter. I mentioned that I will go to Jerusalem, Capernaum, the Sea of Galilee, and Bethlehem. This last place caught her attention.
“Bethlehem?” she asked excitedly, her interest piqued. “You’re going where Jesus was born?"
“Yes,” I said, adoring the fact that she recognized this from her Sunday School classes.
“Will you see the manger?”
This was a little trickier to explain. “Well, the manger isn’t really there anymore. But I will see where it was.”
As expected, this confused her a little bit. “But where is baby Jesus then?”
“Well, he’s all grown up now,” I answered.
Her eyes lit up. “Oh! Well, if he’s all grown up, maybe he’ll find you when he’s walking around Bethlehem.”
I loved this. The simple faith of a child. Jesus is so unquestionably present to her that she envisions him as quite literally walking around teaching and healing today. I pray that she never loses sight of that kind of faith.
This is a very simple outlook on Jesus’ covenant for us. He is looking for us. He is always there, available for anybody (not just the physical descendants of Abraham). By engraving his instructions on our hearts, he is seeking a personal relationship with us, something more than a set of rules carved on stone tablets.
I wonder how many of us know someone who won’t come to church because they feel like it’s an exclusive club--that you have to be born into it, or have to make a commitment much earlier in life. Maybe you yourself feel that way. Jesus’ new covenant is a sign that Christianity, the path to God, the path to Heaven, is for anybody and everybody. God, the creator of every one of us, is searching and waiting for us to come to him, ready to have and build a relationship.
***
"Jesus—the ultimate revelation of God"
Friday, 2 February 2018
Friday, 2 February 2018
Hebrews 1:1 In days gone by, God spoke in many and varied ways to the Fathers through the prophets. 2 But now, in the acharit-hayamim, he has spoken to us through his Son, to whom he has given ownership of everything and through whom he created the universe. 3 This Son is the radiance of the Sh’khinah, the very expression of God’s essence, upholding all that exists by his powerful word; and after he had, through himself, made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of HaG’dulah BaM’romim.[Hebrews 1:3 Psalm 110:1]
***
Reflection Questions:
Reflection Questions:
Much of Judaism’s faith is also part of Christian faith. We share the first 39 books of our Scriptures, faith in one creator God who is our shepherd and our king, and that we are called to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and strength (cf. Deuteronomy 6:5). “On one thing we disagree, however, and that is the identity of Jesus Christ.” * The writer of Hebrews said that while God spoke “in many times and many ways,” God’s final and ultimate word was not a book, but a person: Jesus.
• Sometimes we read the Bible as a set of short verses, all equally true (in Pastor Scot McKnight’s phrase, “sanctified morsels of truth” **), none of them shaped by any of the others. But if Jesus is God’s ultimate word, then all the Bible’s pieces are part of the Bible’s overall
grand story, whose saving center is Jesus. When have you sensed Jesus’ presence teaching you the priority of love as you read your Bible? In what ways does making him the standard of all truth illuminate many of the Bible’s difficult parts
• Sometimes we read the Bible as a set of short verses, all equally true (in Pastor Scot McKnight’s phrase, “sanctified morsels of truth” **), none of them shaped by any of the others. But if Jesus is God’s ultimate word, then all the Bible’s pieces are part of the Bible’s overall
grand story, whose saving center is Jesus. When have you sensed Jesus’ presence teaching you the priority of love as you read your Bible? In what ways does making him the standard of all truth illuminate many of the Bible’s difficult parts
Ø The writer of Hebrews, and likely the readers, did not see faith in Jesus as repudiating the Hebrew Scriptures. The writer affirmed that God spoke through the prophets “in many times and many ways.” Pastor Hamilton expressed that faith: “For me as a Christian, Jesus represents the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham four thousand years ago…. It was through this descendant of David that a king would rule forever…. I believe he is the fulfillment of God’s covenants.”***
"What has helped you better grasp the continuity of your faith with the faith of God’s Old Testament people?"
Prayer: Lord God, you have worked through the millennia to communicate with our human family. Thank you for the Hebrew historians, poets and prophets who wrote so much of the Bible that guides me today. And thank you for Jesus. Amen.
** Scot McKnight, The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008, p. 46.
*** Adam Hamilton, Christianity and World Religions. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005, pp. 104.
***
Ginger Rothhaas
Ginger is a graduate of Saint Paul School of Theology. She and her husband Rob have a son, a daughter, and a high energy dog. She loves writing, conversations over coffee, and teaching spiritual classes.
God speaks:
Through presence called Spirit.
Through words called Scripture.
Through messengers called Prophets.
Through a stirring called Inspiration.
Through creation called Nature.
Through energy called Light.
Through visions called Dreams.
Through peace called Hope.
Through creativity called Art.
Through delight called Joy.
Through our soul called our link to Divinity.
Through grace called unconditional Love.
And Through incarnation--called Jesus.
May we tune in to ALL the voices of God and be the LOVE we are called to be.
***
Daily Scripture:
Galatians 3:6 It was the same with Avraham: “He trusted in God and was faithful to him, and that was credited to his account as righteousness.”[Galatians 3:6 Genesis 15:6] 7 Be assured, then, that it is those who live by trusting and being faithful who are really children of Avraham. 8 Also the Tanakh, foreseeing that God would consider the Gentiles righteous when they live by trusting and being faithful, told the Good News to Avraham in advance by saying, “In connection with you, all the Goyim will be blessed.”[Galatians 3:8 Genesis 12:3, 26-29] 9 So then, those who rely on trusting and being faithful are blessed along with Avraham, who trusted and was faithful.26 For in union with the Messiah, you are all children of God through this trusting faithfulness; 27 because as many of you as were immersed into the Messiah have clothed yourselves with the Messiah, in whom 28 there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor freeman, neither male nor female; for in union with the Messiah Yeshua, you are all one. 29 Also, if you belong to the Messiah, you are seed of Avraham and heirs according to the promise.
***
Reflection Questions:
The apostle Paul loved his Hebrew heritage. Seeing many of his people (though certainly not all of them) reject Jesus as Messiah hurt him (cf. Romans 9-11, where he wrestled with various ways to understand what had happened). As he carried the gospel of Jesus into the Gentile world, and saw the God he had always loved at work in the lives of his converts, he saw God’s activity not as destroying the faith in which he had grown up, but as enlarging the family of Abraham and carrying out the promise to bless all nations. Even some Jewish Christians struggled to accept that (cf. Acts 15). He rejoiced that God had called him to devote his life to bringing more and more of God’s children into the covenant family.
Prayer:
Lord God, it’s remarkable to trace my spiritual family tree all the way back to the great patriarch Abraham. You worked to bless the world through him and his descendants. Since I’m one of those descendants, please bless the world through me. Amen.
Family Activity: Part of understanding people of different faiths can be experiencing their worship.
As a family, choose one world religion (other than Christianity) you would like to learn more about.
Begin by listening to Pastor Hamilton’s sermon on that religion. Discuss similarities between that religion and our Christian faith. Research where in Kansas City people of that religion worship, and attend a service. (Check online to see if there is any dress code.) Or, even better, find someone who practices that faith and ask to worship with them in a spirit of friendship and curiosity. Offer to reciprocate if they would like to visit Resurrection! Discuss similarities and differences between ways of worship and share discoveries as a family. Thank God for loving all people and ask God to help you love others too.
* Adam Hamilton, Christianity and World Religions. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005, pp. 108.
** Ibid.,
***
Jane Fowler
Jane has been a member of Resurrection since 2000, and served with distinction on staff in Adult Discipleship before stepping aside last summer. She continues to mentor young adults and is now serving families with their residential real estate needs.I most often refer to my faith walk as a journey, but often I think of it as a puzzle that God is revealing to me a piece at a time. Sometimes circumstances or other people fill in these pieces. But they are often filled in by me intentionally seeking to know more about God and Jesus and how this knowledge can change my life.
At one time, I didn't think it was important to know much about the Old Testament or our Jewish heritage. I have found, however, the more I understand the teachings of the Old Testament the more I understand Jesus' teachings. The teachings from the Torah (the first 5 books of our Old Testament) are the foundational pieces of our puzzle. These pieces need to be there for us to understand the complete picture of God.
The best way to start to understand how the Old Testament and New Testament fit together is to take "Meet Your Bible"on Tuesday nights. This class lays all of the puzzle pieces out on the table and you can begin to put them in place. Follow it up with Disciple 1 Bible Study in the fall. You will spend 12 weeks in the Old Testament, followed by 12 weeks in the New Testament, and the picture will become more clear.
When you seek knowledge about God, more pieces are filled into your faith puzzle. When you seek understanding of how this knowledge can change your life, the picture becomes clearer.
***
Prayer Requests – cor.org/prayer
Prayers for Peace & Comfort:
• Bev Roy and family on the death of her sister Cathy Boyle, 1/20/17.
• Cathy Cowans and family on the death of her husband Mark Cowans, 1/17/18.
• Harold Curl and family on the death of his wife Jean Curl, 1/17/18.
• Stacey Hayes and family on the death of her mother Jean Curl, 1/17/18
• Scott Tatro and family on the death of his father Thomas Tatro, 1/17/18.
• Steve Berryman and family on the death of his father Francis Berryman, 1/13/18.
• Linda Sakaguchi and family on the death of her mother Jane Wilkins Rosebrock, 1/12/18.
• Kendrea White and family on the death of her grandfather Roosevelt Gibson, 1/11/18.
• Kay Shepherd and family on the death of her mother Sue Porter, 1/8/18.
Ken Hensley and family on the death of his brother Robert Hensley, 1/1/18.
©2017 Church of the Resurrection. All Rights Reserved.
"What has helped you better grasp the continuity of your faith with the faith of God’s Old Testament people?"
Prayer: Lord God, you have worked through the millennia to communicate with our human family. Thank you for the Hebrew historians, poets and prophets who wrote so much of the Bible that guides me today. And thank you for Jesus. Amen.
** Scot McKnight, The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008, p. 46.
*** Adam Hamilton, Christianity and World Religions. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005, pp. 104.
***
Ginger RothhaasGinger is a graduate of Saint Paul School of Theology. She and her husband Rob have a son, a daughter, and a high energy dog. She loves writing, conversations over coffee, and teaching spiritual classes.
God speaks:
Through presence called Spirit.
Through words called Scripture.
Through messengers called Prophets.
Through a stirring called Inspiration.
Through creation called Nature.
Through energy called Light.
Through visions called Dreams.
Through peace called Hope.
Through creativity called Art.
Through delight called Joy.
Through our soul called our link to Divinity.
Through grace called unconditional Love.
And Through incarnation--called Jesus.
May we tune in to ALL the voices of God and be the LOVE we are called to be.
***
Daily Scripture:
Galatians 3:6 It was the same with Avraham: “He trusted in God and was faithful to him, and that was credited to his account as righteousness.”[Galatians 3:6 Genesis 15:6] 7 Be assured, then, that it is those who live by trusting and being faithful who are really children of Avraham. 8 Also the Tanakh, foreseeing that God would consider the Gentiles righteous when they live by trusting and being faithful, told the Good News to Avraham in advance by saying, “In connection with you, all the Goyim will be blessed.”[Galatians 3:8 Genesis 12:3, 26-29] 9 So then, those who rely on trusting and being faithful are blessed along with Avraham, who trusted and was faithful.26 For in union with the Messiah, you are all children of God through this trusting faithfulness; 27 because as many of you as were immersed into the Messiah have clothed yourselves with the Messiah, in whom 28 there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor freeman, neither male nor female; for in union with the Messiah Yeshua, you are all one. 29 Also, if you belong to the Messiah, you are seed of Avraham and heirs according to the promise.
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Reflection Questions:
The apostle Paul loved his Hebrew heritage. Seeing many of his people (though certainly not all of them) reject Jesus as Messiah hurt him (cf. Romans 9-11, where he wrestled with various ways to understand what had happened). As he carried the gospel of Jesus into the Gentile world, and saw the God he had always loved at work in the lives of his converts, he saw God’s activity not as destroying the faith in which he had grown up, but as enlarging the family of Abraham and carrying out the promise to bless all nations. Even some Jewish Christians struggled to accept that (cf. Acts 15). He rejoiced that God had called him to devote his life to bringing more and more of God’s children into the covenant family.
- How much do you understand about the roots of your faith in the Hebrew Scriptures? How might you learn to know and value that history and those roots more highly? The lack of such understanding has produced ugly, tragic consequences: “Christians have given their approval—sometimes directly, sometimes by their silence—to anti-Semitism.”* How can you better equip yourself to accept the pastor’s challenge: “I want to challenge you to hold our Jewish friends and neighbors in highest esteem. They are our older brothers and sisters in faith—first born….Be bridge builders who bear witness to our faith with boldness, but also with respect and reverence”?**
Prayer:
Lord God, it’s remarkable to trace my spiritual family tree all the way back to the great patriarch Abraham. You worked to bless the world through him and his descendants. Since I’m one of those descendants, please bless the world through me. Amen.
Family Activity: Part of understanding people of different faiths can be experiencing their worship.
As a family, choose one world religion (other than Christianity) you would like to learn more about.
Begin by listening to Pastor Hamilton’s sermon on that religion. Discuss similarities between that religion and our Christian faith. Research where in Kansas City people of that religion worship, and attend a service. (Check online to see if there is any dress code.) Or, even better, find someone who practices that faith and ask to worship with them in a spirit of friendship and curiosity. Offer to reciprocate if they would like to visit Resurrection! Discuss similarities and differences between ways of worship and share discoveries as a family. Thank God for loving all people and ask God to help you love others too.
* Adam Hamilton, Christianity and World Religions. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005, pp. 108.
** Ibid.,
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Jane FowlerJane has been a member of Resurrection since 2000, and served with distinction on staff in Adult Discipleship before stepping aside last summer. She continues to mentor young adults and is now serving families with their residential real estate needs.I most often refer to my faith walk as a journey, but often I think of it as a puzzle that God is revealing to me a piece at a time. Sometimes circumstances or other people fill in these pieces. But they are often filled in by me intentionally seeking to know more about God and Jesus and how this knowledge can change my life.
At one time, I didn't think it was important to know much about the Old Testament or our Jewish heritage. I have found, however, the more I understand the teachings of the Old Testament the more I understand Jesus' teachings. The teachings from the Torah (the first 5 books of our Old Testament) are the foundational pieces of our puzzle. These pieces need to be there for us to understand the complete picture of God.
The best way to start to understand how the Old Testament and New Testament fit together is to take "Meet Your Bible"on Tuesday nights. This class lays all of the puzzle pieces out on the table and you can begin to put them in place. Follow it up with Disciple 1 Bible Study in the fall. You will spend 12 weeks in the Old Testament, followed by 12 weeks in the New Testament, and the picture will become more clear.
When you seek knowledge about God, more pieces are filled into your faith puzzle. When you seek understanding of how this knowledge can change your life, the picture becomes clearer.
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Prayer Requests – cor.org/prayer
Prayers for Peace & Comfort:
• Bev Roy and family on the death of her sister Cathy Boyle, 1/20/17.
• Cathy Cowans and family on the death of her husband Mark Cowans, 1/17/18.
• Harold Curl and family on the death of his wife Jean Curl, 1/17/18.
• Stacey Hayes and family on the death of her mother Jean Curl, 1/17/18
• Scott Tatro and family on the death of his father Thomas Tatro, 1/17/18.
• Steve Berryman and family on the death of his father Francis Berryman, 1/13/18.
• Linda Sakaguchi and family on the death of her mother Jane Wilkins Rosebrock, 1/12/18.
• Kendrea White and family on the death of her grandfather Roosevelt Gibson, 1/11/18.
• Kay Shepherd and family on the death of her mother Sue Porter, 1/8/18.
Ken Hensley and family on the death of his brother Robert Hensley, 1/1/18.
©2017 Church of the Resurrection. All Rights Reserved.
Scripture quotations are taken from The Complete Jewish Bible.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Church of the Resurrection
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