Parables updated - Parable of the Faithful Servant

Why? I recently took part in a small group, and one of the exercises was to take a couple parables and update them to examples Jesus might have used today.

Luke 12:35-40

Always be prepared: have a go bag set aside with what you need stocked at all times, including water, food, medications, clothing, flashlights and extra batteries, and have a plan for how to get to safety and contact your loved ones, just as the first responders who know disaster can strike at any time and take cover until the immediate activity is done. Those first responders will be ready and able to help make all the difference in the recovery and triage and getting back to the new normal.

They will be invaluable to their community and many will be saved because of them, and possibly they will be praised by the media for their quick action and ability to serve.

Always keep your bag in a safe place and keep your hard soled shoes and jacket close, because the disaster may happen in the middle of the night. Even if you are not a first responder, these tools are invaluable when disaster strikes.

But woe to those who are not prepared, they will be thrown into the night without slippers or jacket or bag with food and water and light. If they had known what time the disaster was coming, they could have flown out of state and escaped the trial. But you all should be ready, with what you know you will need in advance, because you don't know when disasters will strike.

Parables updated - Parable of the Talents

Why? I recently took part in a small group, and one of the exercises was to take a couple parables and update them to examples Jesus might have used today.

Luke 19:12-27

The owner of a company flew off on a business trip to open a new branch and then return. Before flying out, he called his employees into his office and gave them budgets. "Keep building the business until I return" he said.

But several employees hated him and sent an email message after him saying "HA-HA! You're fired".

Regardless, he set up the new branch and came home. The employees hadn't fired him with Board approval, so he was still the owner despite their email. He then called a meeting to find out what they had been up to.

The first one showed a great presentation with charts and graphs about how she'd taken the budget and using her own idea, she hired software engineers and created a phone app which showed a return on the investment 10 times over the budget she'd been given!

"Great work!" the owner said, "Why don't you see what you can do with these other 10 ideas and matching budget?"

The second one showed an excel spreadsheet and accounts showing his idea of opening a burger franchise had a return of 5 time over the budget he'd been given.

The owner asked him to try opening another 5 franchises.

Then another employee stood up and said "I have all the budget still here, you know there was a market crash and it seemed like a bad time to take any risks because I know you have the Midas touch, but I don't." (His insecurity was bleeding all over the room.)

The owner replied "You are right, you don't have the Midas touch because you won't even try and take a single risk, you are paralyzed with fear, even though you saw me step out on faith for this latest venture. You should have transferred the funds into utilities which consistently return well."

Then he said to the security guards, "Take his budget and add it to the phone app creator's budget."

The folks in the meeting said "Whoa, she has plenty of budget already!"

The owner replied "She was willing to take a risk, act on faith. She built her faith by exercising it. So her faith will grow, even when she fails, and she will get more and more opportunities because she actively opens her eyes to them, but the one who risks nothing, even the hope he had will melt away from him because of his inaction.

"But those other employees who wanted to fire me, they are all fired. Escort them from the building this instant, lock them out of all their accounts immediately, and do not take them back to their desks so they can steal their contacts or other company assets."

The tablets that were broken - found?

I picked up a copy of the Biblical Archaeology magazine for a recent trip. In there, I stumbled upon this in an editorial. You will need a subscription to get the link to work.

In the article discussing who owns artifacts, the culture that produced them, or the country which currently owns the land the artifacts were discovered on, the editor says that the broken pieces of the original tablets with the 10 commandments were found back in 1969!

<tangent>Why is this not well known? Holy hidden treasure, this is big.</tangent>

I just happened to stumble upon that little bit of information. I searched online, but either my search skills are sub-par (probably) or there is nothing about this find on the internet.

Humility: It's underrated part 2 (David)

When we first meet David, he's a teenager. We know that he's spent a lot of time on his own, because no one (but God) helped him kill the lion and the bear. I love how David's example shows us how to go in the strength we have.

God didn't transform David. David was David, grown the hard way. He was despised by his brothers, minimized by his family, and alone a lot. We know he used that time to pursue his passions because he was an accomplished musician and poet in addition to beast slayer. He could dance too.

David reacted very differently to peer pressure than Saul did! He went with his conscience instead of the urgings of those around him. He set his heart on a course, and would not allow others to deviate for him. Look at I Samuel 24. Instead of consulting the fellows around him, he would routinely consult God on matters.

We don't read much of David's early life in the books of Samuel, so in order to learn how he got to be like this, we need to look at the Psalms he wrote. (I know, there's not much about Saul either, and that didn't stop me from forming all sorts of ideas. But I digress.) We see him pouring out his anguish, insecurity, and joy before God. It was his habit. Usually. Most of the time. And when he digressed, he recognized his failings and repented!

We see David's humility when the king seeks to make him his son. He says this AFTER he's become a great warrior. He is not taking what the people around him think of him to heart, unlike Saul.

Saul had a chance to change, but he didn't take it.

Of course, David was afraid at times. He was afraid of the Philistines, and acted like a crazy man. I don't think this was a lack of faith in David, but God used his acting ability to him. I believe God gives us tools and expects us to use them. David didn't care what these folks thought of him, he just wanted to escape.

Perhaps God wanted proof (He knows everything, but sometimes the proof is for our sakes) that David didn't care about other's opinions, because twice God delivered Saul into his hands (1 Samuel 24:3-7 and 1 Samuel 26:7-12) and each time, people encouraged David to kill Saul. But David kept God's will firmly in his mind.

But when David sins, he doesn't bother with the petty stuff, he goes full board with adultery and then murder. When he is confronted, he looks to God, not the person confronting him.

Wow, how did David get so far away from his previous righteous stances? I have a couple theories.
1) David was not Jesus
2) We all can get a little lax when we're on vacation

Alas, David was not done sinning after this tragedy. I think it shows that no matter how many times we repent, we need to keep watch because we will probably sin again. We are never on vacation when we seek to follow God.

Regardless of all his sin events (there are more, maybe I'll blog about his sins of omission someday) he always had an internal compass pointing him back to God. And although God took away his sin, the consequences of his sin still remained.

In conclusion, we saw Saul begin with humility and it slipped away from him as he made bad choices. David also began with humility, and managed to keep a hold of it through out the bad choices he made. What was truly the difference? I think even before he was anointed, David had already set his heart on following God.

The Word (a midweek lesson)

I know I said David was next, and I did start the post on David. But tonight I gave a lesson on "The Word" to my midweek group, and it went pretty well, so I decided to post the highlights of the lesson here. It deviates from the normal style, but... c'est le vie.


Background

When I was asked to do a lesson on "The Word", I thought, uh oh... I'm good at trivia, and tangents, but... I'm no (LB/KN - very wise person I know) and what a broad topic!!! Really?!?!


But, I wasn't worried. I love God's word. It's my favorite book. I read at least a chapter every day. Sometimes, I do in-depth studies. Sometimes I make lists. I love using Excel to analyze what God is showing me, it has helped me to see new things.


I love that God expects us to use Reason. In Isaiah 1:18 he says "Come now, let us reason together." Thanks God! I needed that. I know I'm not like most people, and I felt that was directed at me.

Diversity

That reminds me how much God loves diversity among his people. The church has people from every nation, socio-economic status, political perspective, love languages, varying levels of baggage... Saul enjoyed hanging out with the baggage...


According to the Holmam bible, in Exodus 12:38, "An ethnically diverse crowd also went up with them". I think this is showing that God always had a plan for the gentiles. Every nation must be saved. 


I mean, we just have to look around to see that God loves color. God gave us rainbows and duck-billed platy-pusses, giraffes and toucans, and penguins. So of course, in the bible, He gives us historical parts, poetry, songs, wise sayings, prophesy, allegories and more. Different parts speak to different people at various times in their lives.Sometimes, when I read something in the bible, it's like I get to ease-drop on God's conversation with someone else. I know it will be relevant for me one day, if not today.

Statistics



But then I realized it was time to get busy and make a lesson about "The Word". So I followed the trend and went to the internet, where I found that there are: 783,137 words in the NIV bible, found across 68 books, and 1,189 chapters.


According to Bible gateway's niv 1984 version, there are 964 occurrences of the word "word" in the bible.


There are 502 occurrences of the phrase "the word" although, some of those are "the words". Japanese don't mind plural, so we'll ignore that for now. Most of these references are directly to the word of God, but not all.


Hmm... that's not much help in narrowing down my lesson.

Our Foundation

So I went back to the basics.

Heb 4:12 teaches us that the bible is living and active and goes deep. DEEP. Did you know the word even impacts stones? In Judges 24:27 it says '“See!” he said to all the people. “This stone will be a witness against us. It has heard all the words the LORD has said to us. It will be a witness against you if you are untrue to your God.”'


Jesus also talked about stones being able to cry out in Luke 19:40, but I'll have to meditate on that later.


It's POWERFUL! In Isaiah 55 10-11 we read: "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." God compares his word to water that makes food to grow.

Brief personal history

You see, I started studying the word to beat back the Bible thumpers at my school. That is a story for another day, but these people appeared to believe scripture without reason, they said they took it on faith, but I noticed they wouldn't swim outside the point they wanted to make. They 'studied' but didn't appear to understand, so I read to learn how I could turn it back on them. I'm sure they knew more than I picked up on, but if you are going to open a door like that, someone will step through.

Where was the external proof that this God's word was really God's word? I could tell that more than one person had wrote it. But the lame "Inspired by God" would lead me to snort. 


Joke's on me though, God turned this back on me.

Attaining Wisdom

In a conversation with a good friend recently, I was reminded that we get the wisdom of God with the Holy spirit, but how do we get wise? 

We need to read the word so He has material to work with. He's a gentleman, he doesn't like to force things on people. I think he's very respectful of what we want and are interested in, and I can give you a lecture on Saul if you want to see why I think that way. But that would be another lesson. (See the last blog post).


In Jeremiah 8:9, it says "The wise will be put to shame; they will be dismayed and trapped. Since they have rejected the word of the LORD, what kind of wisdom do they have?" We can't be wise without embracing God's word.


Not long after I was baptized, I started studying, not just reading and I thought "Holy cats, how am I ever going to know as much as ML (a very wise person I know)?" But the Holy Spirit inspired me that if I just read everyday, I will eventually get there. The key for me is writing down (need to do that more!) and meditation.

The Value of Meditation

K will discuss meditation, but my best insights come from chewing on a scripture and asking the Holy Spirit questions. I like to read a story, about Saul for example, and work over the events with the Holy Spirit. There's not a lot of detail, but by engaging in a thoughtful dialog (or a think and wait for inspiring response) I learn a lot from a few short passages.

So... the key is to read as much and as often as you can so there is more material for the Holy Spirit to easily leverage. He can inspire without it, yes, but let's make his job easier. I don't want him to grieve.


I believe this is how we act on Colossians 3:16 "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God."

Source of "The Word"

But I digress. The obvious thing to discuss when given the topic of "The Word" is "The Word".

In Genesis 1, the first thing God does is Speak. You could argue that he Observes while he's hovering, but the first significant action that causes a reaction is Speaking. 


In fact, the word, Universe is Uni = one and verse = sentence. Kind of neat how God slips little tidbits like that into our modern language.


In Deuteronomy 30:14, it says "No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it. " 


What? this is Deuteronomy, before Judges, before Samuel, before Kings... God wrote it on their hearts that long ago? I think that I'll set that aside to meditate on later.


In 2 Kings 3:12 we see that the word of the Lord can go with people. YES! wait... is that Jesus? It could be... there is speculation that the Spirit of the Lord in the old Testament is actually Jesus. In fact, in John 1:14 the word becomes flesh.


And so, here are many scriptures about the word to meditate on later:

• Numbers 3:16, 51 - it commands
• Deut 30:14 - it is in us, it must be obeyed
• 1 Sam 15:23, 26 - it can be rejected
• 2 Sam 12:9 - it can be despised when we do evil (by David!)
• 2 Sam 22:31 - it is flawless, a shield
• 1 Kings 13 - it predicts the future
• 1 Kings 19:9 - it appears
• Psalm 17:4 - it keeps us from violence
• Psalm 18:30 - it is flawless (flaws abound, but it's in us, not God's word)
• Psalm 33:4 - it is right and true
• Isaiah 28:14 - a scary one.... talks about our flawed view of the word
• Isaiah 40:8, 1 Peter 1:25 - it stands forever
• Isaiah 50:4 - it sustains the weary
• Jeremiah 6:10 - it is offensive to some
• Amos 8:12 - Men will search and not find (YIKES)
• Zechariah 4:6 - Victory from the spirit
• The parable of the soils is all about the impact of the word on us
• Mathew 5:16, mark 7:13 - we can nullify the word of God (can we really)?
• Luke 11:28 - blessed if we hear and obey
• John 1:1 - WORD!
• Acts 12:24 - it increases and spreads
• Acts 19:20 - it grows in power
• Acts 20:32 - it gives us inheritance
• Romans 10:17 - it brings faith
• Eph 1:13 - it marks us with the Holy Spirit
• Eph 6:7 - it is a sword
• 2 Tim 2:15 - it can be handled incorrectly
• James 1:18 - it gives birth to us
• 2 Peter 2:19 - it is like light in our hearts
• Rev 12:11 - it gives us proper perspective over life

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Word is many things. It is powerful. It is flawless. It creates. It is Jesus. It lives. 

I encourage you to seek to find how God's word best speaks to you. And let the Holy Spirit build your wisdom as you meditate on His word.

Humility: It's underrated part 1 (Saul)

I've said on more than one occasion "Instant gratification isn't quick enough". Sometimes regarding how I feel, sometimes as a response to a friend's comment. In fact, I used to pray "God, why can't you snap your fingers and 'poof' I'm the person you want me to be?"

But a while ago God showed me something interesting in the bible about this.

In the books of Samuel, we read about two kings. Saul, and David. Saul started with the full package. In fact we see he was quite remarkable in 1 Samuel 9:2 "Saul, an impressive young man without equal among the Israelites—a head taller than any of the others."

He was tall. Tall is good. In fact, I bet Darth Vader would have said "Impressive, most impressive". And Saul was humble, despite being so tall, or perhaps because of? I'm not sure. Regardless, we see his humility demonstrated in 1Samuel 9:21.


<tangent>Interesting psychology there... Someday, I think I will explore the psychology behind that.</tangent>

God leads Saul to Samuel, and Samuel effectively says to Saul in 1 Samuel 10:1-8 "The donkeys are fine (but not talking), people are worried about you, when you are hungry today, notice how God provides for both you and your servant, and then when you see people acting crazy you will join them, and at that moment God will instantly transform you. Then, you'll marinate in it for about a week and finally get some guidance." Samuel enjoys run on sentences in my interpretation.

Something really key here, in 1 Samuel 10:9 "As Saul turned to leave Samuel, God changed Saul’s heart". WOW. I need that. Every day. Every hour... Without the oil poured on my head though. Uh oh, tangent alert, I'll move on.

And Saul wasn't some young teenager. When I was a teenager, I decided to like water better than soda-pop and I've never looked back. Maybe that's not on the scale of Saul's transformation, but when I was young radical change was easier. Saul, he was 30 years old when this happened.

Being crazy with the prophets was something Saul didn't do. 1 Samuel 10:11 But God changed him there, and he was different.

We see that Saul's humility stuck with him through the transformation. When they looked for him, he was hiding with the baggage. I guess he couldn't find a rock to crawl under. Little good it did him, God told the people where to find him.

So Saul becomes king, he's what the people need, he's the one who God transformed into the person he needed to be. He saves towns like, Jabesh Gilead. This is good. This is GREAT! That's what I want! Well... maybe not. You see, the key here is it didn't stick.

<tangent>What's with all the comments about gifts in this passage? 1 Samuel 9:7 & 1 Samuel 10:27 I guess Saul's love language was gifts?</tangent>

Later in his life (not sure how much later, but he has a son who is in the army with him - Jonathan) he appears to lose his humility, the quality he had before God transformed him. The first thing Saul had learned about Samuel was that people wait for Samuel for their sacrifices. In 1 Samuel 9:12-13 the people were waiting and would not eat until Samuel blessed it. However, Saul took matters into his own hands and displeased God. He then added to this poor judgement by forbidding his soldiers to eat.

I think this is where Saul shows that he is overly swayed by what others thought of him. He bound the soldiers with this curse, but then doesn't follow through with the consequences. The soldiers didn't allow him to kill Jonathan, even though he had sworn to. He allowed the opinions of others to matter more than the opinion of God, as we see in 1 Samuel 15. Of course, Jonathan was right, it was a lame thing Saul had done. But it only gets worse from here, and he stops taking responsibility for the actions of his crew even though he was in charge. He allows his fear to control him because his pride now relies more on the opinions of people than the opinion of God and obeying him. Little things began to irritate him because they struck at his new god, others people's opinion.

Saul was someone who God snapped his fingers and made instantly into the person he needed to be in order to be a successful king as we see in 1 Samuel 10:6-7 Saul had humility, and God gave him wisdom, strength and courage, and inspired the nation to follow him. He had everything he needed to rule the Israelites. He got help from God to be a better person, and then soon after that, the good qualities he originally had began to slip away.

Of course, as I type this out, I wonder how much of a god I have made other people's opinion of me. I learn so well from these examples!

Next post, we will examine David.

Shrek has layers

When the movie Shrek came out, I LOVED IT. It was fresh, it was new, it was different. I even loved the ear worm for Duloc that reminded me of the never ending ride through Small World.

But was it really so new? It's an animated children's feature movie with enough content that adults can enjoy (much like Looney Tunes).

It has dragons to overcome, witches, ogres/giants, a talking donkey, a short-rich-non-king fellow, wrestling, singing and dancing, onions have layers... Hey, wait a minute...

• Dragons are found in Job
• Witches (who summon ghosts) in Samuel
• Ogres/giants (The most famous is Goliath)
• There is a talking donkey
• A short-rich-non-king fellow
• Wrestling
• Singing and dancing
• Onions

Hmm... Perhaps the content wasn't new, but the arrangement sure was original!