"Fear in a 'feel-good age'"

"The idea of going through life fearing both God and the consequences of sin seems unattractive in our age where people are so devoted to good feelings. Fear is considered a bad feeling, and therefore people think it is wrong....
Some might say that temporary joy through sin is better than a life of fear and trembling. I respond that this fear and trembling is the gateway to lasting and truly satisfying joy. When we fear the holiness of God and the consequences of sin, we avoid sin. But we do not turn from sin into a vacuum; we embrace life to the full (John10:10. We do not spend the rest of our days wishing that we could have had the experience of the sin we avoided. We are glad that we escaped that enslavement and are now "free indeed" (John 8:34-36). We are glad that God freed us to enjoy Him, for He is not only holy, He is also loving. The Bible says that God delights in us (Ps. 147:11) and that we delight in Him (Psalm 43:4). When we run away from sin, we run into the arms of one whom we love and delight in and who loves us and delights to give us joy. We say with David, "You have made known to me the path of life; You will fill me with joy in Your presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand." (Psalm 16:11).
Thus, the fear of displeasing GOd and of the consequences of sin does not take away the enjoyment of life. It is rather the gateway to true enjoyment."

~Ajith Fernando. Acts. The NIV Application Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998. Pages 206-207

New Testament musings

"But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist,make full proof of thy ministry. For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith... only Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him with thee, for he is profitable to me for the ministry."
~2 Timothy 4:5-7, 11~

"Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth. Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance; knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me. Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance. For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty."
~2 Peter 1:12-16~

I'm taking a New Testament class as a Mid-term (only we call them J-terms here. Other colleges call them "Intensives" which I think is the best description but no one asked me. Pity)
Speaking of NT2, I really should be studying for that test tomorrow... well, wanted to quick bang out some thoughts before I subjected myself to MORE studying.

I have a lot of friends overseas. This is a blessing and a curse, because for the most part they are all cool people with fun perspectives, wacky senses of humor, and bless my socks off, and are thousands of miles away so we can't keep in contact very often.
(this DOES have something to do with the above Bible verses, I promise you.)
I have one friend in particular who has repeatedly told, asked, commanded, exhorted, and requested that I keep in touch consistantly. However this friend is a person of few words so doesn't return the favor as much as I'd like. Which drives me nuts.
A lot of times I think of how unfair it is that God put all these neat people in my life only to assign us to different parts of the world shortly after.
I've met a lot of cool people here at college too, and the constant thought on my mind is that most of my best friends are called to be Missionaries also, but to completely different parts of the world. I'm going to one of the more 'civilized' and 'safe' cultures, to be honest.
One thing that is often on my mind is, how cool is it that there are so many young people excited about God gathered to this one place for training, encouragement, and new friendships. But it is going to be sad and hard when Graduation day comes and we all go our separate ways.
However, we have this wonderful thing called Email, and Facebook, international-phone cards, the loverly accomadation of Skype, etc.

Back in the 'olden days' of the early church, they didn't have any of that.

A lot of times it's easy for me to think of the 'founding fathers of the faith' to be Saintly men who were above normal emotion and who got it perfect (until they didn't, at which time they got a rebuke from Jesus or had a council about it, straightened everything out, and then went back to being perfect) BUT the passages that I put above show that they were men with deep feelings also. It struck me today as we went over these verses how peaceful they talked about their approaching death. A subject that comes up for us going into Missions a lot is persecution and martyrdom. The other Majors think we're a little wacky amd(whatever the name is for those who like to inflict pain upon themselves).
I personally don't like pain. I try to avoid it at all costs. There's more than one reason why I don't have any tatoos.

The writings of the New Testament, especially in Acts, gives a different paradigm on suffering and pain.
"And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name." Acts 6:41

The picture shown us in Acts 2 is so awesome.
"And all that believed were together, and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daiily such as should be saved."
Acts 2:44-47
Now don't get the wrong idea, I don't believe in Communism. ;-)
But I love how they made sure they all had ENOUGH.
Our society is one of "more more, it's all about me, what MORE can I aim for?"

I have high ambitions but they aren't for MORE. It's for ENOUGH to do what I have been called, which is to go to the 'Least of these' and the 'forgotten' to show Christ's love to them in tangible ways.

So lessons I've been learning through the last week; honor in pain and shame, God's provision for ENOUGH, counting the blessings that He has given, and...
now I have to go study for the test tomorrow on all of this.
*sigh*
My apologies if this email embodies my random global nature. But as I said, this was a MUSING, not a sermon. ;-)Hope it made sense.

~Princess Ouch~

New Testament homework

Being the humble sort of person that I am (yeah right) and recognizing the genius of my writing (humble too) I thought I would grace you all with another excerpt from my New Testament homework. Not just because I'm sure you all will benefit from my genius, but also because I just thought a lot of these details that I learned were cool.
I really am a humble person. Really. I just like to sound like an egotistical snob from time to time. Hehehe. Anyway here is the brilliant addition to my student writing portfolio:

3. List and discuss five of the reasons the author gives as to why John is so different from the other Gospels.

1. Matthew, Mark and Luke were trying to capture the public Jesus for the Church, and may have thought that the more private conversations and moments between them and Jesus were not necessary for the public to read about. Also, they were written only twenty to thirty years after Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. The personal memories may still have been too private to publish for all to see. John however was written at least forty to sixty years after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. He had much more time to process the information, and had probably shared these stories with many in his ministry already and saw no reason why he shouldn’t publish them.

2. John’s writing style is very unique. Matthew and Luke were educated themselves and John Mark spent a lot of time with Paul and Barnabas. Paul at least was a very educated person and would have influenced John Mark to become more educated in his speech and writing style. John however was raised as a fisherman. While they were probably educated in necessities such as reading and basic mathematics for trade purposes, fishermen were definitely not scholars. When writing down Jesus’ dialogues, John uses 145 words that are unique to His vocabulary. It is possible that John’s speech and writing style was influenced (‘upgraded’ if you will) by Jesus.

3. As already mentioned, John was writing during a much different time than the other three author’s of the Gospels. He was also writing in a different place (Ephesus rather than somewhere in Palestine). His acculturation, age, and the time he was living in would have effected his writing style.

4. While the other three authors are apparently trying to capture facts exactly as they remember them and simply give a narration of events that took place, John appears to be adding some conclusions after years of thinking and processing the events.

1. Summarize the author’s comments on the message of John the Baptist from Mark’s Gospel.
Mark 1:4 says John’s ministry was “Preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
This English translation can give several impressions on the word ‘baptism.’ Is it an adjective to the word ‘repentance,’ or is it the means through which repentance comes? I found the author’s comments on the Greek and Hebrew very interesting at this point. The Greek word for repentance, metanoia, means a changing of the mind. This is often, I think, what we in America think of when we say ‘repentance.’ We simply change our mind towards life, God, etc. and the change in our life and actions happens very slowly. However the Hebrew word for repentance, shuv, meant a dramatic change in action. This is I think what we need to emphasize as we go into the world making disciples. That repentance is a dramatic change of actions, a shuv, as well as a dramatic changing of how we think about things, a metanoia. But it must be BOTH.
Also, the Greek preposition eis, ‘for’ can also be translated as ‘directed towards’ or ‘with reference to.” So the phrase in Mark 1:4 could be better translated: “Preaching a baptism of radical change in actions and thoughts directed towards being forgiven of one’s sins.”
John also predicted, alluded to and hoped for Jesus’ coming. While his ministry seemed to emphasize baptism far more than this, Jesus’ baptism was the highlight of John’s ministry.
2. The author divides the incident of the baptism of Jesus into four sections. Identify and summarize each of the sections.
~It’s purpose: Baptism of Christ implies that Christ needed washed of his sins. However, we know that Christ was sinless. How then do we understand this? Repentance in Israel involved a corporate confession of sins. As His flesh was of Jewish heritage, Jesus could participate in this corporate Baptismal confession, even though He had not sinned. As corporate confession was required for the fulfillment of God’s appeasement for Israel’s sins, it was necessary for Christ to be baptized.
~Accompanying Signs: All four Gospels refer to a dove, but all four use the word ‘like.’ Something appeared that was like a dove, not necessarily an actual dove. Doves in the ancient world symbolized peace, love, and divinity, but more importantly God’s Spirit in Creation. Jesus was about to begin a ministry of re-creation. Another sign was the Voice from Heaven. God’s voice had not been heard in Israel for hundreds of years until that point. He had sent His angels as messengers, but had not been heard Himself.
~Its’ Message: While the word ‘Trinity’ is never used, this is a vivid picture of the Trinity: The Father speaks from Heaven while the Spirit descends upon the Son Jesus.
~Historicity: This passage is very confusing in it’s theology, therefore why would the early church make it up? It raises several questions such as how can Christ be baptized, how can God the Father be one with the Son whom He is sending His Spirit upon all at once, etc. The early Church certainly would not have included this story if they were making it all up or if it were not important.

3. A. Contrast Jesus’ encounters with Nicodemus and with the Samaritan woman. B. What application concerning the relevance of the gospel can you draw from that contrast?
Contrasts are fairly easy to name. Nicodemus was a man, a Jewish Leader, well respected in the community, a leader of that time, and spoke with authority. The Samaritan woman was a nobody, rejected from her community, shame was on her name both in her own community and in the Jewish community due to her race and her life choices or circumstances, and was trying to just get through life.
Nicodemus went in search of a conversation with Jesus; Jesus initiated the conversation and pursued it with the woman. The Jews were expecting a Warrior King to come throw the Roman oppression off the people. The Samaritans, however, were looking for a Taheb Messiah; more of a Teacher and a learned man to come among them. This made it easier for the woman to recognize Jesus for who He was, where Nicodemus needed to be walked through the Gospel message step by step, despite his education and wisdom. While Jesus boldly confronted Nicodemus with the hypocrisy of the Jewish Leaders and with his own doubt and ignorance, He was much more gentle with confronting the Samaritan woman in her sin and life circumstances.
Their similarities are that both of them thought Jesus was just a wise teacher at the beginning of their conversation. Neither of them really understood Jesus’ parables or analogies for them of Living Water or being Born Again.
The conversation with Nicodemus seems to simply evaporate into the rest of the Gospel of John. This implies to me that Nicodemus did not respond immediately to what he had heard, but had to think through and sift through what Christ had told him. The Samaritan woman, on the other hand, ran and told her entire village about Jesus, even though she seems to usually avoid socialization with the other villagers (as implied by the fact that she went to the well during the heat of the day instead of in the morning or at night like women usually did during that time).
I think we can see by how the Gospel is presented in the two different cases that there is no one perfect formula to be applied to all situations when sharing the Gospel. Jesus did not use a ‘cookie-cutter model’ of presenting the Gospel when talking with Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman. He knew where they were at in their life and spiritually and met them there. He used analogies and parables that were applicable to them in their situations. Also, He was socializing with both the highest order of that time (Nicodemus) and also the lowest order of that time (the woman). Nicodemus was not in his comfort zone and Jesus was stepping outside the social boundaries of that day by talking with the woman. Likewise, we should not be afraid to help those who are timid in learning about Christ. Nor should we fear reaching out to ‘the least of these’ or those who are generally shunned by ‘normal good people.’


See? I told you. I'm a genius. :-)

~Princess Ouch~