May 16th 2012

NOTE: This will be the last journal entry for awhile.

What does this story have to say to us in our lives?

Read Jonah 1 and journal some thoughts

There are times in our lives when God calls us to do hard things, some of them may seem impossible. In those moments we have a choice, we can choose to follow God and begin to do the impossible or we can choose to run. For Jonah, preaching salvation to such a horrible nation (and they did do very terrible things) was so much for him to bear and so he ran.

So many times in our lives, whether we mean to or not, we run from God. Like Jonah, when we run from God (Israel) we run towards hell (deep) here on earth. When we run, God sends storms. God doesn’t send the storms of life to punish us, or to get even with us in some sort of cosmic balancing act. God sends the storms of life to call us back to where He wants us to be, because the place He wants us to be is what is best for us.

Does this sound familiar? Does this at times remind you of the pattern that God works in our lives today? May you come to understand that God has bigger things planned for you than you could imagine, and may you see that the storms of life are God’s way of bringing you into that plan.

May 15th 2012

What has Jonah thinking telling them to throw him into the deep?

Read Jonah 1:7-16

Did Jonah really think God was going to send a large fish to swallow him up and spit him out a few days later right where he needed to go when he asked them to throw him in the water? Seems like a bit of a stretch, doesn’t it? If Jonah really wanted to, don’t you think he could have told the sailors to turn around and the storm would stop? There are so many possibilities for what could have happened, and yet Jonah asks them to throw him in the water; why?

Maybe a better question is why did Jonah ask them to throw him into the deep? To put it another way, why did Jonah ask them to throw him into hell? Remember, being a Jew he would have grown up being afraid of the water, so he’s not planning on swimming to Tarshish, so what is Jonah thinking?

Did you figure it out yet? Jonah wanted to die. His whole view of God was turned upside down by this call to preach salvation to the pagans, so he sells everything and goes to the deep. The storm breaks out and Jonah is sleeping down below while everyone else is in a panic. When blame falls on him, his request is to be thrown into the water and left to die. Jonah is completely done with life.

There are times in our lives when we just want to be done, as if things couldn’t possibly get any worse. It’s in those moments when we meet God, just maybe not always in the way we expect.

May 14th 2012

What is casting lots?

Read Jonah 1:7-8

Casting lots is something we see throughout the Scriptures, and it’s one of those things in the story where we need to ask ourselves what it’s all about. At its core, casting lots is about finding out what is the will of the gods, or of God.

Throughout the Scriptures we see God’s people casting lots to discover God’s will. One of the best examples of how this process worked is found in 1 Samuel 14 (especially 36-42), when Jonathan had tasted honey after his father made a decree not to eat anything. Trying to figure out who was guilty of sinning before God, they began to cast lots.

Now, casting lots for the was a matter of throwing 2 stones, one called “Urim” meaning “guilty” and the other “Thummim” meaning “innocent”. In the story of 1 Samuel, Saul and Jonathan stood on one side and the people on the other. The people were found innocent and Saul and Jonathan were found guilty. Next they cast lots between Saul and Jonathan and Jonathan was found guilty. This is how casting lots worked.

So what does this mean for us? We should note that the last recorded use of casting lots in the Bible comes from Acts 1:24-26, when the disciples were trying to choose Judas’ replacement. Why isn’t this method used after this? Why did Paul use this while he was trying to figure out where God wanted him to go next? It’s interesting the last usage of casting lots happens before the pouring of the Holy Spirit.

We have this amazing ability to be able to communicate with God in a clear way through His Spirit, the question for us is are we using this gift?

May 13th 2012

When we run from God, how does He draw us back to Him?

Read Jonah 1, especially verses 4-5

Storms really get a bad rap sometimes, don’t they? Traditionally we tend to view storms as God’s way of punishing us or getting back at us from something we’ve done. There are even people out there who try to find a cause behind every major catastrophe in our world. They may say that God sent this tornado because of this sin in their state, or in their country.

What’s interesting is as you look at the story of Jonah; God isn’t using this storm to punish Jonah is He? This raises the question; what is the purpose of this storm? (Hint: If you don’t know the rest of the story of Jonah, read it.) God isn’t using the storm to punish or cast judgment on Jonah; instead God is using the storm to bring Jonah back into His will for his life. God uses the storm eventually to bring Jonah to Nineveh.

There are times in our lives when we will face storms, and sometimes (if not most of the time) these storms will be God’s way of bringing us back to Him. In our world we have this mentality of building our own empires (whether big or small); we pick ourselves up by our bootstraps. So it’s easy for us to forget that God is even a part of our lives. It’s in those moments when storms may come to remind us that God desires more from us than to have the most toys, but a deeper relationship with Him.

May 12th, 2012

As we move on and begin to look at Tarshish and what running there meant for Jonah.

Read Jonah 1, especially verses 1-3

So many times when reading this story, it’s easy to put ourselves in Jonah’s place. Let’s face it we’ve all been in that spot where we’ve ran from God. When we run from God, how many of us simply ignore Him in whatever area He’s pushing us in, while still going to church on Sundays? We’ve compartmentalized how we run from God. That’s not what Jonah is doing here.

If we were to look on a map at the distance between Tarshish and Israel we would see that for an ancient Hebrew, it’s on the other side of the world. In fact scholars believe the trip during Jonah’s time would have taken about a year to complete. Think about what we talked about yesterday and the deep and how terrifying this would have been for a solid year.

Because this trip would have taken a year, let’s think about how much this would have cost. In our world, think about the cost of a yearlong cruise. Pretty expensive, right? Same is true for Jonah, only he didn’t live in a world of abundance and credit cards like we do. In order to pay for this trip, Jonah would have had to sell everything he owned.

This brings us to the sticky spot for us in our lives. For Jonah, running from God cost him more than he expected (WAY more if you read the entire story), and the same is true for us. When we run from God it usually cost us more than we realize and drags us further than we ever intended.

May 11th, 2012

Yesterday we looked a bit at why Jonah ran, today we’re going to explore what it means for Jonah that he runs.

Read Jonah 1 especially verses 1-3.

We have to begin here with how a good Jew would have viewed Israel. This begins with the question; where does God live? Obviously a Jew would say that God lives in the Temple in the Holy of Holies. So if you live in Israel you live with God. So following that logic, the further you move from Israel, the further you move from the presence of God in a very real way.

If Israel is the presence of God, what is the deep? For an ancient Jew the ocean is called the “deep” and the deep is the leftover chaos from creation, or to put it another way, hell. So taking a boat over the deep wasn’t just a boat ride, it was something deeper, something spiritual. It was to risk facing hell itself. For Jonah this should be a terrifying trip.

In our lives, there are times when we run from God. When we do, like Jonah, we risk facing chaos. Like Jonah our lives are surrounded with chaos

May 10th, 2012

Have you ever read the story of Jonah and asked yourself the question; why did he run? We expect this from some people, but a prophet of God? In order to help us to better understand this story, we are going to be spending a week in chapter one looking at how chapter sets up the rest of the story.

Read Jonah 1 especially verses 1-3 and journal some thoughts

As you read these 3 small verses, do you get the feeling that you’re missing something? The story begins with a prophet of God who hears from God, we get this. Then something happens, because in the very next verse he decides to run away. So, what’s that about? Why would a prophet of God run from God? What’s going on here?

The key to understanding this whole story comes from a single word in verse 2, “Nineveh”. Why is this such a big deal? Because many scholars believe this is the first time that God sends a prophet into a pagan nation to essentially preach for the salvation of that nation. Seriously think about it, how did God usually have His people deal with other nations? Yet here, God commands Jonah to go to this fish worshipping nation to preach about his God.

Could you imagine how much this call would have rocked Jonah’s world? This totally would have changed the way Jonah would have viewed how God worked in the world. So what does he do? This sort of thing isn’t in his job description, is it? These are the type of people who he wasn’t called to love. In fact it’s safe to assume based on what happens throughout this story that Jonah probably hated them. Yet God was calling him to go and preach their salvation.

What things is God calling us to do today that we never would have imagined. Who is God calling us to love today who we never would have thought of?

May 9th 2012

A few days ago we mentioned that as a rabbi Jesus would have been a master teacher, but what does that mean?

Read Matthew 19:13-15

As a rabbi, Jesus would have had to be considered a master teacher, but what does that mean? First of all, Jesus would have had to know (memorized) the Scriptures, secondly he would have had to know how to speak to people’s hearts. Finally Jesus would have had to have been sharp. As we read the Scriptures, we notice that Jesus seems to be very quick, but how often do we just assume it’s because he’s God?

As we look at this piece of Scripture, Jesus is in the middle of a sermon, when a bunch of kids come up an interrupt him, while their parents ask Jesus to bless them. This is why the disciples get upset and begin to rebuke them. It’s here in the midst of interruption that Jesus makes a point. He warns his disciples about keeping children from Jesus. What makes this such a powerful statement is not that long ago (Matthew 18:1-7) Jesus warns very strongly about keeping children from Jesus.

What is so incredible about Jesus here is he does all of this, on the spot in the midst of interruption. Think about how we react to interruptions. How often do we see interruptions as an opportunity to reveal Jesus to the world? Or do we see more of the disciples than Jesus in ourselves, and find that we’re just angry we didn’t get to do what we planned on doing?

May 8th 2012

What does it mean that Jesus was a “Carpenter”?

Read Mark 6:3

So many times we read that Jesus was the son of a “carpenter” (Matthew 13:33) or like in today’s scripture that Jesus himself was a “carpenter”. We understand that Jesus did this before the age of 30, when someone would be old enough to become a rabbi. But what does it mean that Jesus was a “carpenter”?

So often when we read this, we picture Jesus sitting down making wooden tables and chairs, we picture that scene in the Passion of the Christ where Jesus makes a very high table for rich people. Generally, when we think of Jesus being a carpenter we think of him working with wood. Problem with this is during the time of Jesus, the people of Israel used very little wood. So if there wasn’t a lot of wood work what did a “carpenter” do? The word “carpenter” in Greek is “Tekton” which means “craftsman”. One of the major resources they had in Israel was stones. They were used for construction, tools, and even food production. Jesus as a “craftsmen” would have worked primarily with stones.

So why is it important to picture Jesus working with stones? Check out Isaiah 51:1-2, and spend some time meditating on how we are stones from the same quarry as Abraham, Sarah, and all the great people of faith.

May 7th 2012

Did Jesus keep the Oral Law?

Read Mark 3:1-6 and journal your thoughts

First we need to talk about what the Oral Law was. If the Law or Torah was God’s Law, then the Oral Law was simply a set of interpretations of how to keep God’s Law, and over time the Oral Law turned into traditions. Normally, Christianity tends to look back at all these things and talk about how they’re not important anymore. The problem with this is that they seem to be very important to Jesus.

Notice in how Jesus asks this question about whether it’s keeping God’s Law if someone heals on the Sabbath? In their time there was this debate about how much someone could heal on the Sabbath without it being considered “work”. The general conclusion was you could heal to save a life, other than that you could heal as long as you didn’t have to touch the other person. If you had to touch them, then it could be considered to be work.

Jesus never touches the man. He heals him with his words. Have you ever wondered why sometimes Jesus heals with a touch and other times with just his words? Every time Jesus heals with his words it falls on the Sabbath (with one debatable exception I dare you to find it). Jesus is keeping the Oral Law.

This raises the question; if it was important to Jesus then should it be important to us?

May 6th, 2012

Is keeping the Law important to Jesus?

Read Matthew 9:18-26 and journal your thoughts

Have you ever been reading about God’s Law and thought that some of those commands were a bit trivial? Why do we need to do that? In Deuteronomy 22:12 God commands His people to make these tassels and to wear them on the corners of their robes (NOTE: how are you supposed to be tassels on the corners of round robes, since the robes God commanded the priest to wear are round?). God commands His people to do this to help remind them of His Law.

What’s crazy is God commands His people to wear these tassels twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. At some point wouldn’t that seem to be a bit trivial? Some of us put Scripture up on our mirrors or refrigerator, but after about a week or so how many of us even notice it anymore?

One thing we should note is this woman believes very much in a prophecy in Malachi 4:2 that talks about how the Messiah will have healing in his tassels (“wings”). What if Jesus decided not to wear the tassels that day? What would have happened to that woman if she touched his sandal or something else? Could it be if neither of them were faithful to God’s command, that woman would have died?

This story is a reminder that God is faithful to us when we are faithful to Him

May 5th 2012

Yesterday we looked at what it means that Jesus taught with “authority” today let’s look at where he got it.

Read Mark 1:9-11 and journal your thoughts

The question we need to ask is how did a rabbi get authority (S’mikeh)? Traditionally, a rabbi could only get authority from not one, but two other rabbis with authority. The two rabbis with authority would lay their hands on the other rabbi’s head and declare that they had “authority”. Where did they get this idea? In the book of Exodus when Moses choses 70 judges (advisors) to help him lead the Hebrews, they were anointed when both Moses and Aaron lay their hands on their heads. This is just one of those ideas that stuck with their culture, so this is how someone got authority.

So where did Jesus get his authority? Seriously, when was there a time when two rabbis with authority laid their hands on Jesus? In our Scripture for today we have the baptism of Jesus where John baptizes Jesus. Now John was a rabbi with authority, and we know this since he had disciples (NOTE: Only rabbis with authority had disciples). Also Jesus makes reference to this in Matthew 21:23-37.

So who is the other rabbi? Notice how in Mark 1 we see heaven torn open, and this Spirit descends on Jesus like a dove and proclaims “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” Jesus is the only rabbi in history to get his authority directly from God.

May 4th 2012

What does it mean that Jesus was a rabbi with authority?

Read Matthew 7:28-29

As we read through the Gospels we come across passage after passage that mentions how Jesus spoke with “authority”, but what exactly does that mean? In our culture, we imagine someone who speaks with authority maybe as someone who speaks very boldly or powerfully or maybe someone who is famous in some way. In Jesus day, a rabbi with “authority” meant something very specific.

During the time of Jesus there were two types of rabbis, the first were known as Torah-teachers. These were people who went all the way through the Jewish education system, and knew the Torah (1^st 5 books of the Old Testament) by memory. They were teachers of the Law, but could only teach what the community believed to be a proper teaching of the text. This is like being an ordained pastor; they are allowed to teach what is believed within their denomination. Torah teachers were also master teachers, meaning they knew how to speak to people’s hearts where they would get it. This is very different from teaching theology, this is practical, emotional teaching.

The second group of rabbis were rabbis with authority (S’mikeh). So what did it take to be one of these rabbis? First they had to have the entire Old Testament memorized, not just the Torah. Secondly they had to be master teachers (like the Torah teachers). Third they had to be recognized by the community. Another trait of these rabbis with authority is that most of these rabbis could heal people (Note: Only Jesus raised the dead). Ever wonder why people didn’t immediately believe Jesus after he healed someone? It was expected.

If you fit into these categories, then you could become a rabbi with authority. Now, these types of rabbis were extremely rare, in the 100 years around Jesus’ life there were a little over a dozen of these rabbis. Once a rabbi had authority, they would be able to make new teachings about what the Scriptures means, or how to live it out.

With this in mind, take some time and mediate on just how special Jesus was not just to us today, but who he was in his time.

May 3rd 2012

This week we are going to take a little time and get to know Jesus, who he was in their culture, where he lived, and why these things are important.

Read Mark 2:1-2

So often when we think about Jesus’ home we think of Nazareth, and thanks to the disciple Nathaniel (John 1:46) we think of Nazareth being a sort of backwoods place. Seriously, how often when we think of Jesus’ home do we get this sort of backwoods farm town image? But what we know from the Scriptures is that Jesus tends to base a large part of his ministry around Capernaum. In fact in today’s Scripture there is even a reference to it being a home.

This raises the question, what do we know about Capernaum? Contrary to the view of a backwoods farm town, Capernaum was considered to be the religious educational center during that time. Archeologists have found the remains of a massive synagogue school which would have been dated at the time of Jesus. In fact no other synagogue school from that time would have come close to its size.

So what does this mean for our understanding about Jesus? This means that Jesus is not some backwoods farm boy who comes out of nowhere to show all of these religious leaders what God is really doing. Instead Jesus was considered to be one of the best at what he did. That massive synagogue school would have been a place where Jesus would have taught. This would be like teaching at any Ivy League school today. This means the movement Jesus began wasn’t just with everyday people (which it was), but it was also with the religious elite, the driving force of what it meant to follow God in their day.

Today meditate for a bit on what it means that Jesus was considered to be (during his time) the best at what he did.

May 2nd 2012

So what is the lesson from this story?

Read Luke 4:13-30 and journal what you think the lesson is

The people of Nazareth thought that they were special because of where they were from, they thought they were good with God because the Messiah was going to (and eventually did) come from Nazareth. There are times when we in the church do the same thing. So many times we put our faith in our church, in the building, the denomination, the pastor, but we never really have faith ourselves.

The question Jesus raises with the people of Nazareth is the same for us where do we put our faith? In our church, our parents, our upbringing. Or do we find ourselves like the widow or the leper, people who don’t have the right upbringing, who don’t know all the answers, who may not even have a church home, but put their hope and their faith in God. Essentially, Jesus tells us that we don’t get the Kingdom of God because of where we are from, or which church we are a part of, or which denomination we are a part of, it’s our faith.

The question for us is does our faith look more like the Nazarenes or the widow? Are we putting our faith in the things around us, or are we in our deepest struggles in our most desperate hours putting our faith and trust in God?

May 1st 2012

Yesterday Jesus compared the people of Nazareth to the people of Israel during their most faithless times. How do you think they would respond?

Read Luke 4:13-30 especially verses 28-30 and journal some thoughts

To say that they were angry is a bit of an understatement! They are furious; they are on the verge of exploding! We are Nazarenes! How dare this rabbi say we don’t have enough faith! They are so angry that they set out to have him killed on the spot by stoning him.

In order to understand what happens next, we need to understand a little about stoning in their world. Traditionally the person to be stoned would be taken to a cliff which was about 18 feet tall, they would have their hands bound behind them. Then the victim would be given a chance to confess. Note if they confessed they were still stoned but they would then go to heaven. Then anyone who thought the victim was guilty would pick up a stone and throw it at the person. If the person survived the stoning (see Paul) that meant that God thought they were innocent.

So often when we read verse 30, we read something mystical into it. It’s almost like at this moment Jesus becomes a Jedi from Star Wars and does a mind trick on everyone as he walks through the crowd. But let’s ask ourselves a quick question; what has Jesus done wrong that would deserve stoning? He called them faithless, but that’s not a stonable offence. He claims to be Messiah, but once again Jesus was a rabbi with authority (S’mikah) and lots of S’mikah rabbis claimed to be Messiah, so nothing there worthy of being stoned. Jesus has done nothing wrong, he’s not guilty of anything and so he walks through the crowd untouched.