Week 4 monday luke 22-24

I have always wondered about Pilate why was he the bad guy? This passage shows that several times he refused to put jesus to death. In jesus christ superstar the musical one of my favorite songs is "Pilates dream" in it he sings about a dream he has:

"Then I saw thousands of millions
Crying for this man
And then I heard them mentioning my name
And leaving me the blame".

Pilate had a chance to do the right thing and he tried but he listened to the voices of the people instead.

Do we ever go against what we know is right because a crowd of voices tells us to? How about our politicians their job is to listen to the people? Sometimes doing the right thing is unpopular and it may cost us much ( our jobs , promotions, ministry, peace in our families) but Jesus didnt say "I have come to make you as comfortable as possible". Peter realises the danger of trying to make peace with the crowd and he denies Jesus 3 times, ( I bet he never did again). Pilate could have said NO and stuck to his guns then the death of Jesus could have been the responsibility of others. But he chose to please the crowd.


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Week 3 friday

Luke 17:1-4

Teachings about Forgiveness and Faith

1 One day Jesus said to his disciples, “There will always be temptations to sin, but what sorrow awaits the person who does the tempting! 2 It would be better to be thrown into the sea with a millstone hung around your neck than to cause one of these little ones to fall into sin. 3 So watch yourselves!
“If another believer sins, rebuke that person; then if there is repentance, forgive. 4 Even if that person wrongs you seven times a day and each time turns again and asks forgiveness, you must forgive.”

Forgiveness without repentance! This is what Bonhoeffer calls "cheap grace" this can rarely restore our relationships. The goal of forgiveness and repentance must be restored relationship but if our "brother" doesnt want forgiveness( makes no effort at repentance) how can relationship be restored! Sometimes forgiveness can be one sided but this kind of forgiveness is for ourselves so we are freed from the bondage hate and despair. If the one who sinned against us passes away before they can repent we may need to forgive to free ourselves.




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Week 3 thur

The Pharisees were very good at making rules and forcing people to keep them , who you can eat with how to prepare food and yourself for the meal on what day you can and cannot work. Jesus says not in my kingdom in my kingdom we dont put obstacles in the path of the lost and suffering we remove the obstacles.


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Week 3 wed

Jesus sends out the disciples and tells them to rely on him, not to plan for their trip out of their own supplies. Then he feeds the people when the disciples cant figure out how they will ever afford it. Do we try to do ministry under our own abilities also? I wonder what would happen if we just left it up to Jesus?.


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Week 3 tue

"why do you eat and drink with such scum?" matt 5:30

Why do we spend our lives around all the best people?


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Week 3 day 1

Luke1-4
Luke 4:18-21
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released,
that the blind will see,
that the oppressed will be set free,
19 and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.”
20 He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down. All eyes in the synagogue looked at him intently. 21 Then he began to speak to them. “The Scripture you’ve just heard has been fulfilled this very day!”

Good news to the poor, captives released, blind seeing and oppressed set free... Is that what we see happening in our world? Is that the same good news we are sharing with people. We need to think about what "Good News" means in our society.


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Week 2 day 5 gospel challenge

The last 3 chapters tell the story of Jesus' death and resurrection. For the last 2 weeks we have read the other 25 chapters of Matthew. Why did matthew bother if the death and resurrection is the totality of the "Good news", he could have saved a lot of papyrus? Out of the 89 chapters of the Gospels only13 chapters are dedicated to his death and resurrection.
Well perhaps that was not the only message that Jesus came to tell or that Matthew, Mark , Luke and John wanted us to hear. The rest of the Gospels tell us that Jesus came to begin his kingdom and how we should live as his followers/subjects.
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