A New Vision

A New Vision

Bible Challenge Blog for 7/17/2013                                      

One of the things I like most about reading the whole bible is encountering concepts I had never read before, concepts that intrigue and challenge me, like this passage from Paul:  :  ‘ So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view “ (2 Corinthians 5: 16, NIV).  This idea absolutely astounds me!  It means that we need to see ourselves and others differently, as part of God’s kingdom on earth. 

The new vision (and indeed it is an entirely new vision, a profoundly new way of seeing ourselves and the other people in the world) is truly a game changer.  It elevates our goals, our way of seeing other people, our daily interactions, raising everything to a whole new level, from the ordinary to the celestial.  It means we are no longer citizens of the world, but citizens of heaven living out our time here on earth.   

But now comes the hard part: this isn’t just about us; it’s about everyone.  We need to regard them also as children of God—yes, that includes the everyone, even people we have been led to dislike or distrust.

When we begin to think about other people from a heavenly point of view, we begin to realize much we must be all alike to God.  Understanding how deeply God loves not only us but all the other people in the world as well-- in spite of all our flaws and failures—motivates us to do the same.  It is the Good Samaritan story all over again, only ratcheted up a notch, because this vision is not just about loving our neighbors but acknowledging that they too are God’s beloved, for God holds us all in his heart, regardless of how unworthy we are.  The strange thing, though, is that most of us manage to forget exactly who we are in God’s sight.  All too often we simply get caught up in our own needs and personal agendas, caught up in the struggles of our daily lives but fail to see ourselves and others as God’s  beloved.  We actually forget who we are!  Unbelievable, isn’t it, our ability to forget how deeply God loves us?  No wonder the psychologists’ waiting rooms are full. 

Clearly we need to change, even if changing won’t be easy.  We may want to start by dismantling our prejudices and preconceptions and begin to try harder to see others the way that God sees them.  Yet responding to this challenge helps us fulfill our destiny, of becoming the people that God intended us to be from the start.  Responding will change the world.  What would have happened, for example,  if George Zimmerman saw Trayvon Martin the way that God sees him, as one of the beloved? 

Judy Kuhns   

Blog Posting for June 25: Covenants in II Kings

God has asked that we give of our time, talent and treasure  to invest in and work on our relationships with each other and with God. Throughout 2 Kings, Israel and Judah do not live up to their covenant agreement; King after King does what is evil in the sight of the Lord, interspersed with Kings that do what is right in the sight of the Lord …. except the high places were not taken away.  The faithful Kings try to clean their spiritual house and in several cases set up building funds (sound familiar?) to repair God's house. The situation continues to spiral out of control as Israel is carted off to Assyria and Judah is besieged in Jerusalem.  Israel and Judah seem to be obsessed with Power, Prestige and Possessions to the point that they forget their covenant and in the end they lose all three. Josiah is made King at age 8 and finally he does what is right in the sight of the Lord and walks in all the ways of his father David. At age18, Jerusalem is on the verge of collapse when during a house cleaning to account for cash to pay for repairs to the house of the Lord, or possibly to buy their way out of trouble, they rediscover the Law.  Josiah reads the Law to all of the people and they rededicate themselves to their covenant with God. But  their efforts are too little too late and Jerusalem falls twice to the Chaldeans, the temple is burned and the people are carted off to Babylon. The great exile begins....

                                        2nd Samuel 10-24; 1st Kings 1-3     Acts 17-22

Hello again!   Hope you have been enjoying this Bible challenge.  

This week our readings are very interesting and intriguing as we finish the book of  2^nd  Samuel and begin the 1^st Book of Kings. David has been anointed king of Judah.  God makes a covenant with David that He will never remove his steadfast love from the house of David and it will last forever.  

David is faithful in his love of God and he follows the commandments – at least he tries to.  Our readings in 2^nd Samuel will cover how David sinned against God by committing adultery and murder – Bathsheba and Uriah.  God will not go against his covenant (he still loves David) but tells David his first born son will die.  Not only that, but “I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house.”

Is God Crying?

Hi again.  This is Judy Kuhns, posting responses to this week’s readings for Judges 7-Ruth 4, Psalms 75-79, and Luke 21-Acts 2, focusing primarily on the way that God is sometimes presented in the OT and the NT.

Remember reading in Deuteronomy, how God repeatedly warned the Israelites what would happen to them if they ever forgot His covenant?  Well, here in Judges that is exactly what they do, living as if God is not their king, doing whatever they liked. Again and again, as soon as they feel safe in the promised land, they revert to all kinds of decadence, not only making idols, but intermarrying with the Canaanites and living extremely wicked, wanton lives.  From Gideon with his golden idol to Samson (a Nazarite, no less, who violates his vows) to the sexually depraved men of Gibeah who remind us of the Sodomites, we have the accounts of a people guilty not only of apostasy but who had strayed as far from God as possible.  The Book of Judges presents God’s chosen living in the abyss of degeneracy. If you, like me, think that God sometimes cries, this must have been one of those times.

Yet no matter how evil we become, God never gives up on us.  The cycles of sin and punishment are always followed by redemption.  This is the undeniable pattern throughout all of the Old Testament: God is always true to his covenant, even if we are not.   

The ultimate redemption comes of course at the end of Luke, which gives us not only the painful story of the crucifixion with all its betrayals but goes on to include the account of the disciples on the Road to Emmaus, one of my favorite passages. I like to imagine being there with the disciples, watching them begin to overcome their trepidation and confusion and finally understand all that has happened, moving from outright fear to revelation and recognition.  What a day that must have been for them, after all that they had been through.  It must have changed them forever, so much so that after Pentecost and the Ascension, what do the early Christians do next?  In Acts 2 Luke depicts them living the way we all should live, with love and joy and abundance in every sense, sharing all that they had, and praising God, who must have been dancing. What do you think?  What is God doing now, here in 2013?

Bible Challenge Week XIII

At the end of his life, Moses said “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your god, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them , I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.”

The Israelites crossed the Jordan and struggled to establish their place in the land they were promised. They attacked in many cases with shock and awe. I am troubled by their utter destruction of the people who were in the land, some of them possibly their ancestors from Abraham’s line who settled there and never left for Egypt. I am also amazed by their confusion on how to deal with their neighbor nations that held different beliefs and how we are dealing with the same issues today.

Joshua said at the end of his life “Be very careful, therefore, to love the Lord your God. For if you turn back, and join the survivors of these nations left here among you, and intermarry with them, so that you marry their women and they yours, know assuredly that the Lord your God will not continue to drive out these nations before you.”  For me this could be a turning point and an opportunity for Israel to further God’s kingdom with their God as the God of all nations. Instead, paranoia takes over and Joshua continues “but they shall be a snare and a trap for you, a scourge on your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land that the Lord you God has given you.”

Joshua continues “put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve….but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”  Even the Judges do not always trust God completely as evidenced by Gideon’s testing of God. The paranoia and suspicion of their stranger neighbors and of their own trust in God continues throughout Judges. The authors of this book justify the presence of the other nations as necessary to test all those in Israel who had no experience of war!  Why is the knowledge and experience of war necessary to avoid war? There is blood on the hands of both the men and women of Israel and sometimes the innocent, like Jephthah’s daughter, get caught up in the drama.

The adventure continues and is beginning to look very familiar to me.

Dan Ries

Joshua 4 – 6, Psalm 66, Luke 12

How many parallels do you see between the story of Moses in the Exodus from Egypt and the story Joshua in the Israelites entry into the promise land?  God told Joshua to have one man from each tribe take a stone from the middle of the Jordan and bring them to the other side.  It was a sign, so when future children saw it they would ask what these stone represented.  What type of “stones” do we leave to encourage our children to ask questions so that we have the opportunity to share our personal stories of God’s love for us with them?

Did you know that Rehab is listed in the genealogy of Jesus?  Do you know what other women are listed in the genealogy?

Today’s reading in Luke has some familiar, some comforting and some challenging passages in it.  “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  What clues does your bank register tell you about what is important in your life?  Jesus tells us not to worry and uses the wonderful example of comparing God’s care of the flowers in the fields to how much more he cares for us, but then Jesus follows with saying he came to bring division instead of peace to the earth.  What do you hear as the overall theme of this chapter?  Why do you think the writer of Luke chose to put these stories together?

Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth; sing the glory of his name; give to him glorious praise!  Selah

Ann Butler

Joshua 1-3, Psalm 65, Luke 11

Happy May Day!  

Today we not only start a new month, but we also begin a new book in the Hebrew Scripture.  Congratulations to everyone for making it through the Book of Deuteronomy.  This week Joshua will get his commission from God, and the Israelites finally make it into the Promise Land, but not without some difficulties.  The first part of the Book of Joshua is all about espionage and battles.  God will commission Joshua, giving him the instruction, “This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it.”  That is a tall order, how many of us have been able to make daily meditation on God’s word as part of our spiritual discipline?  (Notice, it doesn’t say daily reading, it takes us that next step.) 

How appropriate that on the first day of May we read Psalm 65, a song of thanksgiving for the bounty with which God has blessed our earth.  And aren’t we blessed with this wonderful rain we have been having?  It will help when I go out to pull some of the bounty of the weeds currently residing in our garden.

In Luke’s reading today Jesus teaches the disciples how to pray using the format of the Pater Noster.  Have your ever prayed the version from New Zealand Book of Common Prayer?

Eternal Spirit,
Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:

The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom
sustain our hope and come on earth.

With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and testing, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.

For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,
now and for ever. Amen.

“No one lights a lamp, then hides it in a drawer. It’s put on a lamp stand so those entering the room have light to see where they’re going. Your eye is a lamp, lighting up your whole body. If you live wide-eyed in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. Keep your eyes open, your lamp burning, so you don’t get musty and murky. Keep your life as well-lighted as your best-lighted room.” Luke 11:33-36 (The Message)

What has God commissioned you to do as Christ’s hands and feet in this world?  Are you letting your light shine, or hiding in a cellar?

May you look upon the bounty of God’s blessings in wide-eyed wonder, and your light be so bright you are Christ's beacon to all you meet this day.

 Ann Butler, EfM Mentor