Some view faith as a nice and neat packaged faith as compared with real life with doubt, question, and struggle. Paul writes the additional letters in the NT b/c it’s not all roses for the churches. The Lord is adding to their number in the midst of conflict and trouble and yet there is still faith.There were some good comments during the dialogue time tonight. If you have more thoughts, please share them with us all...
The Jews were “neat and tidy.” Greeks were “don’t know don’t care”. Our world is predominantly similar to this, and yet God is calling us to live in the tension between these two just as Paul & Co.
The Epics and Stoics and Jews essentially cloistered themselves so that their debates only went so far. Evaluate your own experience of church to see if there are places where there is cloistering and whether we have contributed to it.
Are we going and sharing as the example that we are given by Paul?
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Acts 17
As we continue our walk through the book of Acts, we pick up in chapter 17 with the continuation of Paul's second missionary journey. In this chapter we see Paul share the story of Jesus with three different groups in three different ways, yet it's the same message. Here are some of the jumping off points that we opened up for discussion:
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one thing that sparked me was our conversation on having conversation. the idea that the black and white thinkers and the don't know-don't care thinkers need to come together and have conversation, but many times we've all experienced such conversation and just end up frustrated because the other person can't/won't see our point of view.
then i was thinking about conversations I've had with 2 particular people in my life. one of them loves to just talk ideas. he'll hear anything and mull it around. he would've loved athens at the time paul visited. he and i have had some very deep discussions about life, faith, God, and religion. he still doesn't believe in much of anything.
another person i talk to regularly about faith-topics also loves conversation, but mostly to persuade me to be more like her. she has had a wonderful experience in her new church and her understanding of who God is has grown, and with good intent, she wants me to experience that as well. but she wants me to experience it just as she has, not as God would have it for me.
*insert apology for length of this post here*
so, i ponder... what makes good conversation? i think it's when 2 (or more) people come together to talk about things so that we can learn more- specifically about God and who He is, but if it's about life, faith, politics, food and other enjoyable topics which might somehow reflect upon God, then that might be swell too.
But I think good conversation is when you come together to grow from one another- not to change one another or put further expectations on one another.
I love how Ryan has been bringing out the important role of community in our life. we need one another. I need a community of people to help me. But as we think and consider the role of the community, I think we should think about our conversations. Are we there to change one another? Or to be open to conversation, to allow the Holy Spirit to move among us, so that God might speak to our hearts? Are we allowing God to speak through us, revealing who He is, in a way that would inspire one to draw closer to it?
there are further implications of this kind of conversation (for example, some one is bound to say something dumb, or flat out wrong, and I'll probably be the first to model such behavior). but further discussion would just make this post obscenely long.
all in all i ask, do we conversate to listen, hear another view, and see if we can catch a bigger glimpse of who God is, or do we chat so that we're heard and so that more people would be like us? that's a good question to ask yourself before sitting down at the coffee shop.
"not to change each other".
I feel the need for further elaboration. sorry for hogging the blog space. but i'm sure there's room for you, too! please join me.
my elaboration. yes, we are here to change one another- but as part of the process. we're not all "alright, just the way we are." i think deep down we all know that, to quote a friend, "i need something broken fixed inside of me." and we need each other to help initiate and direct the change. as iron sharpens iron... that kind of stuff.
but what i was getting at in my first post was that we don't need to expect each of our journeys toward that change to be the same and that through conversation we can find the freedom to discover what God might have for us.
ok, i'm done talking/writing now.
Interesting thoughts, Michele!
Immediately I thought of someone I don't personally know, but do know on a forum, that just likes to hear himself. But as I was thinking, I saw myself in the same attitude. How many times do I hear, but not listen? I would hope to talk to get glimpses of God...
Anyway what I was thinking on Sunday was just how unlike the Jews and the philosophers and Jesus are. Jesus was not neat and tidy in the sense of the Jews. He was willing to get down to the levels of people, willing to talk to people, and touch the unclean. And he's not like the philosophers who toss around ideas just for the sake of tossing them, but don't really care about the heart, which is really the big idea. Jesus was after the heart...
Also, I was thinking about the idea of community. When God created Adam, he said that it was not good for him to be alone. So he created Eve. Some would argue that all we need is God. True, God is the only one who satisfies our true, deepest longings, but God must have created Eve for a reason. Cause, the way I see it, if God was enough, then who needs Eve-like people? I'm for community, I guess, because I sure don't want to see this life if I was alone...
Ahhh, GOD IS GOOD! He thinks of everything...
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