February 17, 2009 7:44 AM
Sam wrote:
In verse 27, why did Jesus not want to offend the tax collectors? My guess is that, unlike the Pharisees whose hearts were extremely hard, these tax collectors were 'common' people and Jesus didn't want to appear rebellious to authority. He wanted to 'become like them', much like Paul often did (recall 1 Cor 9:22-23 - "I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.")
We have all kinds of rules and regulations we have to follow 'in the world'. Jesus, becoming like man, also realized this 'social requirement', and even had Peter pay HIS tax with the four drachma coins he would find in the fish. Because of Jesus Christ's death on the cross, we believers are declared free. We are free from the punishment of sin, free from the tyranny of sin, free from the need to earn favors from God, and free from following endless religious rules and regulations in order to reach God. We don't need to go to a temple to worship God, we don't need to wear a suit and tie, and we don't need pews and hymnals to please God.
But what if we're trying to reach those who do follow these man made religious customs? Then Christ calls us to "go with the flow," as long as the custom is not causing us to sin. Just as Christ became like the people He intended to reach, even to the paying of taxes, we too are to sometimes set aside our freedom rights, and become like the people we're trying to reach, in order to better win them over to Jesus Christ.
If we ACT religious, we can easily offend people who realy KNOW us. We are to BE religious...SHOW the world how a Christian SHOULD live. THAT way, we can win people for Christ. The other day I was getting into one of my selfish moods, and my wife quickly pointed out that I WAS being selfish, NOT being a Christian. So, I prayed about this and lo and behold...how true she was. So, I have been put aside my desires and have given in to those living in my household, doing the things THEY want to do, instead of what "I" want to do. I am succeeding, I believe, in 'paying my taxes' to my family. AND, I feel a WHOLE lot better. Reply to this
February 17, 2009 8:56 AM
Sam wrote:
Just HAD to send this to you all. Rick has occasionally said that one wife is all anyone can 'handle'....read this story from CNN today: A married Chinese businessman who could no longer afford five mistresses held a competition to decide which one to keep. But the contest took a fatal turn when one of the women, eliminated for her looks, drove the man and the four other competitors off a cliff, Chinese media reported. The spurned mistress died and the other passengers were injured, the reports said. Police initially thought the car had plummeted off a mountain road in eastern China on December 6 by accident. Then they learned of the contest through a letter the dead woman had left behind, the Shanghai Daily newspaper said. The 29-year-old woman, identified only as Yu, was a waitress when she met the businessman at a restaurant in the coastal city of Qingdao in 2000. At the time, the businessman, identified only by his last name -- Fan -- was married and had four other mistresses, according to the Peninsula Metropolis Daily newspaper in Qingdao. The women knew of one another, but none elected to break up with the man and give up their rent-free apartment and a 5,000 yuan ($730) monthly allowance, the reports said. When the economy soured, the businessman apparently decided to let go of all but one mistress. He staged a private talent show in May, without telling the women his intentions. An instructor from a local modeling agency judged the women on the way they looked, how they sang and how much alcohol they could hold, the Shanghai Daily said. The judge knocked out Yu in the first round of the competition based on her looks. Angry, she decided to exact revenge by telling her lover and the four other women to accompany her on a sightseeing trip before she returned to her home province, the media reports said. It was during the trip that Yu reportedly drove the car off the cliff. Fan shut down his company after the crash and paid Yu's parents 580,000 yuan ($84,744) as compensation for her death. The four other women left him, as did his wife when she learned of the affairs. Reply to this
February 17, 2009 4:01 PM
Rich wrote:
Gosh, and to think I was considering having a contest between my mistresses!!!
Seriously, how can a guy have 5 mistresses and his wife not know? Talk about deception and fraud! What kind of marriage did he have? Obviously not a good one. I am glad he got what he deserved, except maybe to have been in front of the car just before it swerved off the road. Just think about how much this man's deception hurt others. He deeply hurt, both emotionally and physically, his 5 mistresses and his wife. Lets all call one another to fight the sin of being SELF centered. Reply to this
February 18, 2009 8:47 AM
rik wrote:
have any of you looked at 4 to 5 different women lusfully in the same day? Week? Year? In the eyes of God we (at least I know I am) are all guilty of this sin. Reply to this
They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life." And the disciples were filled with grief.
First, Jesus says he will die, (at that point I would understand their grief), but then he concludes his statement with what was soon to become the single greatest moment in all of history---He, Jesus, would be raised again to life. The disciples should have expressed joy, but they did not...they obviously STILL did not understand what Jesus was teaching them.
Are we like that sometimes? Do we hear, but don't listen? Do we hear only PART of what is being said? Are our emotions influenced by incomplete understanding of people and things? Again, all of these are rhetorical questions, but just something to think about as you listen to your spouses, your children, your friends, and even your acquaintences.
A perfect example of that happened to me today. I didn't read an entire email one of my employees had sent me on last Wednesday. I had invited him to a lunch with my boss and his boss on Thursday, but his reply was sent in two paragraphs...the first on a completely different subject. I didn't read the second part until today when I was searching for info in another email he had sent. His reply to me then was he was tied up in a teleconference and could not attend. I apologized to him today as my thoughts about him until today in this matter were that he hadn't even bothered to reply (as I had suspected he didn't even WANT to be there).
Yes, we need to listen to everything people say to us...don't ya think? Reply to this
February 17, 2009 6:47 PM
Johnbob wrote:
Very good point about not hearing the second part of what Jesus said. First he says he will die - after all they had been through together, he would die - unbelievable. But then he would rise again - what a miracle - they should have been in awe and amazed and rejoicing. But that promise/prediction just didn't sink in - they just couldn't conceive of it. Who knows why, but it could have been that it just didn't fit with their view of Jesus. It was so outrageous that they just couldn't conceive it - same thing with the Pharisees, though that group took it many steps further and turned against Jesus to protect their way of life.
I do this today. I walk around in guilt and shame when I don't need to - I 'hear' the words about being saved, about not losing my salvation unless I walk away, but it is just too unfathomable many times because I feel the guilt of consistently falling short. I am not nearly as bad as I used to be with this, but it still a weakness. Reply to this
February 17, 2009 3:56 PM
Rich wrote:
Wow, Mac is so lonely today he wrote three times!!! Joking aside, reading your comments is a QT in itself. I really appreciate how much energy you put into the blog and into your comments/insights/questions.
Two things struck me today about the Transfiguration story. First, I think the reason Peter asked if he should build tents was that Peter really believed these guys to be real and alive. That is, he did not think he was seeing ghosts. My guess is that Moses and Elijah looked completely normal. However, I wonder how Peter knew if was Moses and Elijah. It is not like they had cameras back then and he had pictures of these two guys hanging on his kitchen wall. I guess he just asked Jesus who they were. Don't you wish you were there? Don't you wish we knew more about the relationship between Jesus and his disciples than we know? My guess is that there was a lot of dialogue between Jesus and the disciples that we do not see recorded. That leads me to my second point. Jesus told these guys not to say anything until Jesus rose from the dead. I assume they obeyed Jesus and set this aside as a memory. They probably told others this story after Jesus left and the stories passed around until Matthew wrote this down. When I tell someone a story that happened a couple of years ago, I just talk about the highlights of the story. I do not redo the entire dialogue. Maybe as the story passed around people laughed at Peter's comment (I remember some preacher making fun of Peter with this verse). Or maybe it was to show how real Moses and Elijah appeared. Also, my guess is that Moses and Elijah spoke with Jesus and interacted with Jesus like they were old friends. Maybe they even told a few jokes!
Bottom line, we have brief descriptions of events that happened in the life of Jesus and we have some handed down quotes of his. We do not have recorded events. I think it is important to be careful NOT to read the Bible like we are reading the text of the president's latest news conference. And, I think it is good to stop every so often and try to picture the entire scene. Likewise, I think it is good to "fill in" the scene with what you think it was like. As I said above, I really wish I was there. This must have been an awesome event. Just being with Jesus was of course awesome, but this was so incredible. Moses and Elijah, great pillars of the Jewish faith, heroes, legends, there is the flesh with Jesus. Wow!!! Reply to this
In verse 27, why did Jesus not want to offend the tax collectors? My guess is that, unlike the Pharisees whose hearts were extremely hard, these tax collectors were 'common' people and Jesus didn't want to appear rebellious to authority. He wanted to 'become like them', much like Paul often did (recall 1 Cor 9:22-23 - "I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.")
We have all kinds of rules and regulations we have to follow 'in the world'. Jesus, becoming like man, also realized this 'social requirement', and even had Peter pay HIS tax with the four drachma coins he would find in the fish. Because of Jesus Christ's death on the cross, we believers are declared free. We are free from the punishment of sin, free from the tyranny of sin, free from the need to earn favors from God, and free from following endless religious rules and regulations in order to reach God. We don't need to go to a temple to worship God, we don't need to wear a suit and tie, and we don't need pews and hymnals to please God.
But what if we're trying to reach those who do follow these man made religious customs? Then Christ calls us to "go with the flow," as long as the custom is not causing us to sin. Just as Christ became like the people He intended to reach, even to the paying of taxes, we too are to sometimes set aside our freedom rights, and become like the people we're trying to reach, in order to better win them over to Jesus Christ.
If we ACT religious, we can easily offend people who realy KNOW us. We are to BE religious...SHOW the world how a Christian SHOULD live. THAT way, we can win people for Christ. The other day I was getting into one of my selfish moods, and my wife quickly pointed out that I WAS being selfish, NOT being a Christian. So, I prayed about this and lo and behold...how true she was. So, I have been put aside my desires and have given in to those living in my household, doing the things THEY want to do, instead of what "I" want to do. I am succeeding, I believe, in 'paying my taxes' to my family. AND, I feel a WHOLE lot better.
Reply to this
Just HAD to send this to you all. Rick has occasionally said that one wife is all anyone can 'handle'....read this story from CNN today:
A married Chinese businessman who could no longer afford five mistresses held a competition to decide which one to keep.
But the contest took a fatal turn when one of the women, eliminated for her looks, drove the man and the four other competitors off a cliff, Chinese media reported.
The spurned mistress died and the other passengers were injured, the reports said.
Police initially thought the car had plummeted off a mountain road in eastern China on December 6 by accident. Then they learned of the contest through a letter the dead woman had left behind, the Shanghai Daily newspaper said.
The 29-year-old woman, identified only as Yu, was a waitress when she met the businessman at a restaurant in the coastal city of Qingdao in 2000.
At the time, the businessman, identified only by his last name -- Fan -- was married and had four other mistresses, according to the Peninsula Metropolis Daily newspaper in Qingdao.
The women knew of one another, but none elected to break up with the man and give up their rent-free apartment and a 5,000 yuan ($730) monthly allowance, the reports said.
When the economy soured, the businessman apparently decided to let go of all but one mistress.
He staged a private talent show in May, without telling the women his intentions. An instructor from a local modeling agency judged the women on the way they looked, how they sang and how much alcohol they could hold, the Shanghai Daily said.
The judge knocked out Yu in the first round of the competition based on her looks. Angry, she decided to exact revenge by telling her lover and the four other women to accompany her on a sightseeing trip before she returned to her home province, the media reports said.
It was during the trip that Yu reportedly drove the car off the cliff.
Fan shut down his company after the crash and paid Yu's parents 580,000 yuan ($84,744) as compensation for her death.
The four other women left him, as did his wife when she learned of the affairs.
Reply to this
Gosh, and to think I was considering having a contest between my mistresses!!!
Seriously, how can a guy have 5 mistresses and his wife not know? Talk about deception and fraud! What kind of marriage did he have? Obviously not a good one. I am glad he got what he deserved, except maybe to have been in front of the car just before it swerved off the road. Just think about how much this man's deception hurt others. He deeply hurt, both emotionally and physically, his 5 mistresses and his wife. Lets all call one another to fight the sin of being SELF centered.
Reply to this
have any of you looked at 4 to 5 different women lusfully in the same day? Week? Year? In the eyes of God we (at least I know I am) are all guilty of this sin.
Reply to this
Verse 17:23 always has amazed me.
They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life." And the disciples were filled with grief.
First, Jesus says he will die, (at that point I would understand their grief), but then he concludes his statement with what was soon to become the single greatest moment in all of history---He, Jesus, would be raised again to life. The disciples should have expressed joy, but they did not...they obviously STILL did not understand what Jesus was teaching them.
Are we like that sometimes? Do we hear, but don't listen? Do we hear only PART of what is being said? Are our emotions influenced by incomplete understanding of people and things? Again, all of these are rhetorical questions, but just something to think about as you listen to your spouses, your children, your friends, and even your acquaintences.
A perfect example of that happened to me today. I didn't read an entire email one of my employees had sent me on last Wednesday. I had invited him to a lunch with my boss and his boss on Thursday, but his reply was sent in two paragraphs...the first on a completely different subject. I didn't read the second part until today when I was searching for info in another email he had sent. His reply to me then was he was tied up in a teleconference and could not attend. I apologized to him today as my thoughts about him until today in this matter were that he hadn't even bothered to reply (as I had suspected he didn't even WANT to be there).
Yes, we need to listen to everything people say to us...don't ya think?
Reply to this
Very good point about not hearing the second part of what Jesus said. First he says he will die - after all they had been through together, he would die - unbelievable. But then he would rise again - what a miracle - they should have been in awe and amazed and rejoicing. But that promise/prediction just didn't sink in - they just couldn't conceive of it. Who knows why, but it could have been that it just didn't fit with their view of Jesus. It was so outrageous that they just couldn't conceive it - same thing with the Pharisees, though that group took it many steps further and turned against Jesus to protect their way of life.
I do this today. I walk around in guilt and shame when I don't need to - I 'hear' the words about being saved, about not losing my salvation unless I walk away, but it is just too unfathomable many times because I feel the guilt of consistently falling short. I am not nearly as bad as I used to be with this, but it still a weakness.
Reply to this
Wow, Mac is so lonely today he wrote three times!!! Joking aside, reading your comments is a QT in itself. I really appreciate how much energy you put into the blog and into your comments/insights/questions.
Two things struck me today about the Transfiguration story. First, I think the reason Peter asked if he should build tents was that Peter really believed these guys to be real and alive. That is, he did not think he was seeing ghosts. My guess is that Moses and Elijah looked completely normal. However, I wonder how Peter knew if was Moses and Elijah. It is not like they had cameras back then and he had pictures of these two guys hanging on his kitchen wall. I guess he just asked Jesus who they were. Don't you wish you were there? Don't you wish we knew more about the relationship between Jesus and his disciples than we know? My guess is that there was a lot of dialogue between Jesus and the disciples that we do not see recorded. That leads me to my second point. Jesus told these guys not to say anything until Jesus rose from the dead. I assume they obeyed Jesus and set this aside as a memory. They probably told others this story after Jesus left and the stories passed around until Matthew wrote this down. When I tell someone a story that happened a couple of years ago, I just talk about the highlights of the story. I do not redo the entire dialogue. Maybe as the story passed around people laughed at Peter's comment (I remember some preacher making fun of Peter with this verse). Or maybe it was to show how real Moses and Elijah appeared. Also, my guess is that Moses and Elijah spoke with Jesus and interacted with Jesus like they were old friends. Maybe they even told a few jokes!
Bottom line, we have brief descriptions of events that happened in the life of Jesus and we have some handed down quotes of his. We do not have recorded events. I think it is important to be careful NOT to read the Bible like we are reading the text of the president's latest news conference. And, I think it is good to stop every so often and try to picture the entire scene. Likewise, I think it is good to "fill in" the scene with what you think it was like. As I said above, I really wish I was there. This must have been an awesome event. Just being with Jesus was of course awesome, but this was so incredible. Moses and Elijah, great pillars of the Jewish faith, heroes, legends, there is the flesh with Jesus. Wow!!!
Reply to this