Ruth and Boaz were two incredible models of character that show us how we ought to be as people of God in his kingdom.
To behold is to look deeply, to hold something in view and to be attentive to the depth and detail of what you might not, on the surface, see. Advent is a season for followers of Jesus to spend in a posture of deep attention: our focus is on the coming of Christ, and the coming of Christ’s Kingdom.
Leadership is a team sport. Want to go fast – go alone; want to go far – go together...
Jesus is assuming we are serving, but when we serve, the posture of our heart matters. Instead of us changing our city, we want our city to change us. Doing the deeper work of caring is not about how we change others; it is about how we are being changed when we give or fast or serve.
How to give and keep your word? Jesus’ kingdom was upside down. Where there was more general acceptance of divorce in the surrounding culture, Jesus challenges his disciples to this impossible ideal of keeping your word – even if it causes you pain.
Covenant can be destroyed however, and in those situations, we do believe there is room for divorce in discernment with Christian community, counselors, and pastors.
Caring for someone when they are weak, vulnerable, sick, or dying is a way to demonstrate the sacrificial, humble love of Jesus. Christ gave up his rights and took on the nature of a servant. Caregiving relationships often require us to give up a sense of what we have a ‘right’ to (freedom, etc). They demand that we reconstitute our sense of self, our rights, and that we find communion with Christ, who became a servant and washed the feet of the disciples... as well as communion with the disciples, who washed the body of Jesus before His burial. Caregiving can be both a profound formational experience as well as a deeply exhausting and demanding one.
Paul moves to making this ‘new humanity’ practical in our real, day-to-day lives. To do this, he takes the big idea and applies it to contemporary Roman Household codes... redefining roles, and motivations, and relationships, ie Jesus is the Lord, not the husband, etc... Paul is reshaping the roman household codes around Jesus so they are transformed beyond recognition. What are current ‘codes’ that need to be reexamined in light of Jesus’s call to His followers?
This poem or early church hymn communicates the centrality and supremacy of Christ. The rest of the letter is an exploration of the meaning of this poem. Christianity isn’t simply about a particular way of being religious, or a system for how to be saved or how to be holy, it is about a person, Jesus Christ. The poem points to a few things regarding the person of Jesus: 1. Jesus is the image of God, so we know who God is by looking at him. 2. Jesus holds together the old creation and the new. 3 Jesus is the blueprint for genuine humanness. We can discover how to be human by looking at him and he is the head of the new reconciled humanity.
Clarity on what the Bible is and what the Bible is not... The Bible tells one incredible story that followers of Jesus claim changes everything. Followers of Jesus have been willing to risk their lives, love sacrificially, and give generously in light of the over-arching Message of the Bible.
Clarity on what the Bible is and what the Bible is not... The Bible tells one incredible story that followers of Jesus claim changes everything. Followers of Jesus have been willing to risk their lives, love sacrificially, and give generously in light of the over-arching Message of the Bible.