How do we best navigate the tangled thicket of issues arising from the convergence of politics, current events, and influencers in the modern world? This question arose acutely in the aftermath of the death of Charlie Kirk, and we reflect on it and what Scripture can teach us about being people who are more attentive to Jesus than current events, who pay attention to the right voices, and who practice the politics of Jesus.
Scripture is pretty unapologetic in its instruction to give thanks in every circumstance which means that there's clearly something about gratitude that is good for us. We see in our text that gratitude is the byproduct of genuine faith but then practicing gratitude in every circumstance serves to remind us what genuine faith is really about and that is us being the undeserving recipients of God's grace and mercy. Gratitude reminds us of this truth.
Christianity creates people of absolute gratitude and yet a focused ingratitude. Breaking worldly cycles of calculated generosity, Scripture teaches us to give without calculation, and receive without shame.
Scripture says the earth is the Lord's and all it contains, and we mostly don't believe this because we believe that our stuff is our stuff. As a result, we struggle with entitlement, and fail to be as generous as we should. And yet Scripture is firm: everything is God's, which means generosity makes sense, is good for us, and makes us good for others.
In some ways, God seems to bless both Jacob and Esau. But Jacob's life is one that is marked by some things that allow for continual blessing from God and Esau chooses to walk away from God's blessing, ultimately bringing a curse.
The rhythm of blessing and curse runs throughout the entire Bible and is field by 2 core lies. Jacob is really the poster child for a life lived in bondage to these two lies. But God is faithful and won't leave Jacob. He's going to wrestle these lies out of him, even if it hurts him.
Isaac had planned to bless his favorite son Esau, but Isaac's wife Rebecca wanted the blessing to go to her favorite son Jacob. So, she hatches a plan for Jacob to trick Isaac into blessing him rather than his brother. When you read this story, you can't help but notice just how dysfunctional this family is. The marriage is messed up, the parenting is messed up... the whole story is pretty sad. However, if we're willing to learn from their dysfunction, we can have families that are full of much more joy, harmony, and grace.
Abraham's near sacrifice of Isaac is one of Scripture's most challenging stories, and has been interpreted a number of ways. Exploring the story from 3 distinct angles, we let it speak to us about holding our earthly loves with open hands, about refusing to hurt others in God's name, and about the good news that God in Christ steps into our impossible situations to do for us what we could never do for ourselves.
We are told over and over again in scripture to be people who live by faith. But what does that mean? What does it look like in our day to day lives to "live by faith?" Ironically, Abraham is known for being a man of faith, but in Gen. 16 we see him and his wife Sarah make some very poor decisions. In this particular chapter, they stand out as examples of how not to live by faith... not their finest moment. However, we can learn a lot about what it means to live by faith even from their failure.
God chooses a man named Abram and makes a covenant with him. We learn through this covenant about the character of God. We also see how we (the church) fit into this covenant as both recipients and participants.
In Genesis 6-9, we find one of the most famous and infamous stories in the Bible: the story of Noah and the Great Flood. In this story, God goes on a journey toward acceptance of an imperfect relationship with his imperfect creatures, because God refuses to give up on his creatures and his creation.
Cain experiences rejection, which causes dejection, and when dejection wins in our lives, our brother pays the price. But while Cain is the first killer, God does not abandon him because if when we fail to keep our brother, God still keeps us.
Genesis tells us that God created mankind in his image and likeness. Humanity is unique and special in that way. Our personhood comes from God himself and the God who created us knows how we are to live our lives in order that we might flourish.
God creates the world in freedom and out of and for delight; this is the deepest truth of the creation story. Believing this truth creates people who understand life is a party and not a catastrophe, people who find truth, beauty, and goodness more interesting than tragedy, trauma, and melodrama.
The early church was a charismatic community in which miraculous eruptions of the Spirit were somewhat normal, and were often channeled through people gifted to channel such gifts. But these charismatic gifts seemed to wane fairly early in the Church's history. Why? And how can we be people who are open to charismatic gifts while also resistant to desperation for them or the sensationalizing of them?
Another category of spiritual gifts are the "speaking gifts." These include gifts of teaching, exhorting (encouragement), leadership, wisdom, knowledge, apostles, evangelists, and pastors. Like the serving gifts, each of the speaking gifts are evident in the life, ministry, and teaching of Jesus. It's also important to walk in humility and wisdom with the speaking gifts otherwise there is a great temptation for pride and arrogance with these gifts since they are often more public.
Many of the spiritual gifts listed in the New Testament could fall in a category called "serving gifts." These includes gifts of service/helps, giving/generosity, mercy, faith, discernment, administration, and hospitality. Each of these gifts are also connected to the life, ministry, and teaching of Jesus. It's important to learn to walk in wisdom in regards to our gifts because when we don't, there is a negative side to each gift that can result in a lot of struggle in those perceived areas of giftedness.
Spiritual gifts are special abilities given by God (the Holy Spirit) to Christians so that they can do God's work in the world. Whenever the subject of spiritual gifting is discussed it usually raises a lot of questions. What are the gifts of the spirit? How do we get them? How do we know what gifts we have? How do we use them? In this intro to our "Gifted" series, we'll take a look at some overarching big ideas regarding spiritual gifts and learn how we can begin discerning what ways the Holy Spirit has gifted us for God's work.
Boaz has a goal to become Ruth's kinsman redeemer. So, he puts together a plan to make it happen. We see the Elders of the city and the people of the community pray for them and encourage them as they marry and have a child named Obed. The story of Ruth and Naomi is really a story of tragedy to triumph... brokenness to blessing. In many ways this mirrors the story of the Bible and the story of the gospel. In it we learn that even when we're wondering where God is and waiting, He is still working. Ultimately through Boaz and Ruth's lineage comes Jesus. Ruth's story reminds us that God's plan is better than our own.