I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 9.

    When Jesus said to His audience that they needed to “take up your cross daily” it would not have been a vague metaphor. That would have had vivid meaning to them as they would have been familiar with seeing condemned men carrying their cross has they were taken to be executed. Jesus is telling us that in order to serve Him we need to do things which we will no more desire than those men desired to carry their cross. If we wish to serve Jesus we will need to willingly go to our deaths, sacrificing our wants and desires in order to perform God’s will. If we try to avoid doing so, we will lose our lives and our very souls. The only way we can preserve our lives and our souls is to willingly give them up to serve God. One of the main characters in a book series I love put it this way, “It does us no good to give up our heart to obtain our heart’s desire.” As much as we might dread what we expect to find at the end of the path which Jesus leads us down, the end of every other path is worse. However, Jesus also tells us that we will find that the end of the path He is leading us down will be less dreadful and more glorious than we imagine. Yes, there will be suffering, but beyond the suffering is glory.

    I have been struggling with what to say here because I am going to use an example involving someone who I know reads this blog. Here Jesus tells us that the least among us is the greatest. He says this in the context of telling us that those who welcome a child in His name welcome Him, and that those who welcome Him welcome God the Father. We have a tendency to read Jesus as saying that those who are least will be greatest, as if you may be the least now, but you will be the greatest later. However, that is not what Jesus said. He said, “Whoever IS the least among you IS the greatest.” This is not that somehow in the future God will make you great because you are least. No, this is the least are really the greatest.
    Now for the part that makes me nervous. I, and a couple of other friends, run a practice for a local group. After our last practice I was talking with someone who feels that they are not as good as they should be. They feel like they are the least able person at our practice (for the purpose of this blog I am going to assume that this feeling reflects reality, although that is open to debate). As a result of this, they think it is a waste of time for them to continue. Yet I cannot help but think that Jesus is telling those of us who think we are better than this person at this activity that we are wrong. He is also telling this person that because they are the least at this activity that they are actually the greatest. The thing about it is that I almost know what He means in this context. This person, who thinks they are so terrible at this activity, is my favorite teacher of newbies who are just starting to understand what they are doing because when she works with them she does not intimidate them, as some of our members who are more confident of their skill do(myself included, not because I am that good, but because I am that confident). And because she more naturally fences down to them in a way that encourages them to stretch their ability. And all of that is irrelevant to my point. Jesus is telling us that when we think we are the least is actually when we are the greatest.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 8.

    I do not think I have ever given much thought to Luke’s passage here about the women who accompanied Jesus and the twelve as they traveled around Galilee. It is somewhat interesting that these women were travelling around with a group of men in that culture. At least a couple of these women were prominent women. In particular, Luke mentions the wife of Herod’s business manager and a woman named Susanna, someone with whom he appears to assume his audience is familiar. I conclude from this that Susanna was someone who was significant in the early Church (or at least in the area where he was sending this letter). However, the part of this which caught my attention is that these women were covering the expenses of Jesus’ ministry out of their own resources. The way Luke words this suggests that some amount of support for Jesus and the Twelve came from people in the towns they preached in, but that these women provided the expenses which could not be covered that way. The fact that Luke emphasizes that these women did this out of their own resources suggests that he wants to make it clear that they were not using their husband’s or their family’s money to support Jesus. These were women who HAD their own resources to support Jesus’ ministry.

    In reading the parable of the lamp in Matthew, Mark, and now in Luke I have started to realize that there is something there more than what I have traditionally understood. My traditional understanding of it, and what I remember being taught about it, is that we should stand up and not be shy about others learning that we are believers in Christ. However, Jesus immediately follows this parable by saying that secrets will eventually be revealed and that the hidden will be exposed. While that suggests that Jesus may mean something other than the traditional understanding, the very next thing makes it certain. The next thing Jesus tells us is that we need to be careful how we listen to what He says, that we need to really work at it. Those who don’t just hear what He says, but actually listen will gain more understanding, but those who think they do not have to listen will lose what little understanding they already have. I don’t quite understand how these things connect. The best I can come up with is that we need to make sure that we let people know that our actions are motivated by what Christ teaches and that we are constantly striving to understand Him better. Let our words and our actions shine light upon Jesus and His teachings.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 1.

    One thing I wonder as read the opening to Luke’s Gospel. Was he writing to a person by the name of Theophilus? Or, was he addressing his writing to everyone who was a lover of God (the translation of Theophilus)? I suspect the former, but, in either case, Luke assures us he has done his homework and gotten the facts straight. When you look at all of the details which Luke got right, from cities which were lost to history until modern archeologists rediscovered them to routes of travel which seem the long way around until you look at the geography and where the Roman roads ran.

    I cannot help but sympathize with Zechariah when the angel comes and tells him Elizabeth will bear him a son. Because the angel told him not only that Elizabeth would bear him a son, but that that son would be a man of renown. The angel told Zechariah that he would be called on to raise the boy with strict discipline (that is, Zechariah would need to impose strict discipline upon himself as he raised the child). All of this is quite a lot to take in. So, naturally, Zechariah asked for a sign. The angle gave Zechariah a sign, but that sign was also a punishment for doubting. Zechariah would be unable to speak until the child was born. I have long thought that, while Zechariah would have loved to have the chance to talk with others about the angel’s message, he was grateful for being forced to silently contemplate what it all meant for those nine months.

    On the other hand we have Mary’s response to the message she received from the angel. Her response was, “May everything you have said about me come true.” She faced a much more difficult time. Yet she welcomed it readily. She had no doubts that the words the angel had spoken to her were true. The message which Zechariah received was unmitigated good news. He would finally have a son. The news which Mary received was much less so. She was going to spend the next several years surrounded by scandal. Despite this Mary was able to rejoice and see the blessing which God had laid upon her. Whether we find ourselves in Zechariah’s or Mary’s shoes, let us be glad when God sends a message to us.