It's a group of people from my church reading a chapter of the Bible every day and then sharing their thoughts on the reading. Check it out and participate, its a great thing to do.
OH! I do have something. Thanks to Chris Dela Cruz for reminding me of what the theory was on what the 153 fish meant at the end of John. The idea was that at the time of the writing, it was believed that there were 153 species of fish in the world. So if you interpolate that idea a bit, you could say that the disciples caught one of every species of fish in existence. Think about that a little more and replace "fish" with "people" and you get this:
Jesus' message of love and forgiveness is meant for everyone. Jesus made these fishermen into fishers of men - "catching" them for Christ. So if you follow the symbolism here - you could interpret it to mean that these fishers of men should be fishing for every single type of person in the world. Now this might seem weird, but I'm gonna quote Kanye West here:
To the hustlers, killers, murderers, drug dealers even the strippersIf we interpret the 153 fish to mean that everyone should be eligible to receive the grace of God, then these lyrics are as true as they can be. Kanye says "even" the strippers. As if strippers are lower than murderers, but Jesus hung out with prostitutes - and you could argue that's one step beyond stripping. I think his point though - and I believe he's right - is that the people that are viewed as the dregs of society, the ones that people look down on, the ones that neighborhoods are afraid of, or that families shun - Jesus walks with them. Jesus redeems them. Jesus loves them. Jesus died for them. Every type of person you can think of; from Mother Theresa to Adolf Hitler; Jews to Muslims; divorced, heterosexual women to happily married gay couples; Republicans and Democrats; Jesus loved them all. All 153 types of fish, and every kind of person. Let that love that Jesus had for your enemies permeate through you and love them as well - just as he commanded us to do.
(Jesus walks with them)
To the victims of Welfare for we living in hell here hell yeah
(Jesus walks with them)
Reading for June 3
2 Samuel 20:14-21:22
So this guy Sheba, who is trying to usurp King David's throne, is hiding out in a town called Abel Beth Maacah. Now, Joab - David's army commander - has his army invade the city in search of Sheba. A woman approaches him and demands to know why his people are attacking their city. He says "Hey, we're just lookin for this dude who's trying to kill King D." And then she's all, "Oh, OK. Go outside of the city and I'll throw his head over the wall." And wouldn't you know it, that's what happens. This woman summons all of the townspeople to search for Sheba and the cut off his head and throw it over the wall. Pretty intense. Then Sheba signed a cat food deal.
After this, King David wants to make amends with one of the nations that was destroyed under Saul's reign as king. The people were the Gibeonites and for their forgiveness of Israel, they demanded seven of Saul's male descendants. David made it happen and seven "Saulites" were murdered. An eye for an eye. Or, I guess in this case, an eye for a family.
Acts 1:1-26
YES! New book! I read through Acts with my friend Alex right before I started this project - it will be interesting to see if I see it differently this time.
So Acts was written by the same guy that wrote Luke. It opens with the same Salutation to Theophilus. If I remember correctly, there is no clear answer as to who Theo is - most scholars just assume it is meant to be "student". So this book opens with a recap of what happened in the gospels, focusing heavily on the time Jesus spent with the disciples after his death. There is something I just noticed for the first time here: Jesus was alive with the disciples for 40 days after his resurrection. First of all - that's crazy. I always thought it was like one day - two tops - and only very brief appearances. 40 days is a month and a half that the disciples spent with a guy who was once dead.
Also, ever since I came across that 153 thing, I have started to look into other meanings of numbers in the Bible, and 40 is a special one. You may have seen this so many times, you don't even notice it anymore. I hardly ever thought about it, outside of recognizing that it was a common number used. To understand the significance, you need to look at the pieces of the number 40 - 4 and 10 or 4 x 10. 4 is the number that is used to refer to earthly things. Four corners of the earth, four winds etc. 10 is looked at as the number of perfect completeness. 10 commandments, 10 plagues, 10% of your money (tithe), and so on. So Jesus being on the earth for 40 days after his death shows that the time he spent on the earth was both complete and of the earth. Hmm...that's not as significant as I thought. Crap. Well, either way, the Biblical numbers are really interesting, and definitely worth looking at.
So after these 40 days, Jesus went up to heaven for good, or at least he's been there up until the time of this writing. And then the disciples replaced Judas in what must have been a series of awkward interviews.
Peter: "So do you have any questions for us?"
New Applicant: "Yeah, actually. I wanted to ask why this position was open. Is it a new position or was the previous employee let go?"
Peter: "Uh...well, the previous employee kind of...well he uh...you know what, yeah he was let go."
Psalm 121:1-8
It's a short one, I'll just share the whole thing:
1 I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the LORD,This is nice and hopeful, but its obvious that God does not keep us from harm. I mean look at Haiti, look at the Holocaust, look at the oil spill, God did not keep those people from harm. I believe that God wants what's best for us, but sometimes - a lot of times - the best thing doesn't happen. Sometimes it seems like the worst things happen. So at risk of being blasphemous, I would say that psalms like this are just as dangerous as the saccharine-sweet contemporary Christian songs of today. Painting a picture of rosy, Thomas Kinkade perfection where nothing bad can happen. The danger there is one of two things:
the Maker of heaven and earth.
3 He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
4 indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;
6 the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
7 The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.
1) If trouble arise you will refuse to deal with them in a realistic way - pushing them down and hiding them so the world can't see the cracks in your persona or
2) When - not if - when something awful happens to you, you won't know how to deal with it and you'll collapse from the inside.
God is not an immunity chip from pain or despair - pain and despair and awful things are what make us grow as people. "Consider it pure joy, brothers when you face trials of many kinds." Right?
Do I come off as a pretentious prick when I quote the Bible like that?
Proverbs 16:18
Hah! Well played, God.
18 Pride goes before destruction,
a haughty spirit before a fall.
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