Yes yes. I just had a great small group with my friend Alex. We were talking about how the Bible calls us to be good stewards of our money. And while the majority of the time when you are donating a portion of your money, it's going to churches or charities, I think there is definitely some value in being generous with your friends, or even random strangers, even if they're not in need. The example I gave was something that happened over the weekend. Jilly and I went to lunch with some friends in the city and on top of them paying for the whole meal, they also gave the waitress about a 50% tip. This made the waitresses day. She absolutely could not believe that someone would be so generous towards her. She said that even before she got the tip we were cheering her up with our "positive attitude" and after she got the tip she was totally floored. I've always been a huge fan of the random act of kindness but hardly ever actually commit one. I think being generous or randomly kind to a stranger has a lot of value. You never know what someone is going through - "Each heart knows its own bitterness and no one else can experience its joy"
My challenge to myself this week is to commit a random act of kindness to a stranger or fairly unknown acquaintance. I would invite you to take on this challenge as well if you'd like. Let's see how much better we can make this week for one person.
Reading for June 14
1 Kings 12:20-13:34
OK so to understand this, we really need to define our characters. The problem is that their names are almost exactly the same:
Jeroboam - the current king of all of Israel, except Judah
Rehoboam - the current king of Judah, and son of Solomon, grandson of David.
To make it easier, let's call them Jerry and Randy.
At the start of this section, Randy is all set to drum up support from Judah to overthrow Jerry and reclaim Israel as his own. God interferes and tells him not to go through with it, and to just faithfully serve as the leader of Judah. Randy obeys and retreats to Judah.
Jerry however, believes that Randy is actually coming to overthrow the kingdom. So to make sure Israel would follow and support Jerry, he built two golden calfs and convinced all of Israel that these were the gods that led them out of Egypt. Really, Israelites? Come on...you really fell for that again?
Anyway, this obviously does not sit well with God and he send a messenger - let's call him Bradley - to tell Jerry that what he's doing is wrong and that these idols will be destroyed. Jerry does not take kindly to this message and actually orders the golden calf to sieze Bradley. Remember, this is a religion that Jerry invented - and he ordered his pretend god, a statue, to seize someone. When he does this, Jerry's hand freezes up and he is unable to lower it. Then the statue breaks in half, just as Bradley predicted. Jerry realizes he's dealing with the real thing and asks Brad to pray that his hand be restored. He agrees and Jerry gets his hand back. Jerry then invites him over for dinner, but Bradley says that God instructed him to not eat or drink anything in the Jerusalem and to return a different way than when he came.
On his way back, someone else invites Bradley over for dinner. Bradley tells him about the command from God but this other guy says "Hey God gave me a command too - it was to have you over for dinner" (Ugh...that sounds like maybe the world's worst pick up line). This second guy was lying about the command from God and as soon as Bradley sat down to eat, the second guy said "Ha! You disobeyed God and now you will pay!" So Bradley leaves, probably thinking "What a freaking jerk" then - are you ready for this - he gets mauled by a lion. The Bible says that this was his punishment for disobeying God. Um...are you effing serious? Some douche tricked him! Why should he be punished for someone else being a butthole? You know, it's petty little things like this that make a strong case for the God of the OT and the God of the NT being completely different - and maybe even separate - entities.
Acts 9:26-43
Not a lot of story progression here. The twelve disciples are unconvinced that Saul is changed, but the rest of the Christians do believe him and it seems like there are now two groups of people spreading the message. One led by Saul, and the other led by Peter. One thing I noticed when researching this chapter was that Saul was often known as the Apostle to the Gentiles (Non Jews) which is strange because the message was being freely given to everyone from both sides of the mission...
Psalm 132:1-18
Wow - I'm just picking up on some cool stuff here. This psalm describes the promise David made to God, and the promise God made to David. David promised that he would not rest until there was a dwelling place for God on earth - this eventually became the temple. God promised that one of David's descendants would sit on David's throne. But the hidden message there is that one of David's descendants actually ended up sitting on the throne at the right hand of God. That is pretty incredible.
Proverbs 17:6
6 Children's children are a crown to the aged,
and parents are the pride of their children.
Alright friends. Have a good night.
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