Luke
Heather and I are starting out to do a study of the book of Luke together. Our initial assignment is to read through the whole book and jot down some things that stick out to you. That sounds like kind of a hard thing to do to me. So I grabbed a cup of coffe and sat down and started reading. I made it to chapter 17 in that sitting. A few neat things did stick out to me at first. Luke says in his first paragraph that he is writing this book for Theophilus (sp?) so that he may “know the certainty of the things he has been taught.” Then reading on in the next few chapters that statement makes sense right away. The sort of detail he puts into it is amazing. He mentions this king, ruler or governor who was in power in this place or that place while this was taking place (just one example of his detail). He doesn’t just describe what happened, he throws an amazing amount of detail around it as if to say to the readers , “check it out for yourselves.”(keeping in mind his initial readers lived in the time that these things happened). This book strikes me as a good one for someone who wants historical proof about Jesus. Just like Luke says in his opening statement “so that you may know the certainty….”
One other big thing that stuck out to me is how many scuffles Jesus gets into with the pharisees. Many of them it seems like he knows what is going to happen and he sets it up. It is easy for me to read them and think how bad the pharisees are….but the more I think about it the more I find in my heart the types of things that Jesus talks to them about. Just the sheer number of his confrontations with the pharisees (and teachers of the law) makes me stop and think about what is in their hearts that He so detests. There is a “famous” preacher/author here in Grand Rapids named Rob Bell. I listen to his MP3’s once in a while while I jog. He shed some light on this for me. he points out that a very large amount of Jesus’ words are directed to “religious people.” Like the Pharisees. And in many ways, these words apply directly to us who are “churchgoing people.” He is concerned about our hearts. Even though we find ourselves within the walls of a church, our hearts can be completely somewhere else besides the Lord. God called Israel, and Us to be his people. To have our hearts set on him and to follow him, and this is very important to him.
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at
14:48:41
Hey Rickster… Saw your comment on my blog, so I thought I’d check out your page. It reminds me of when we were in college and you had get.to/therick. I still remember the url. Get dot to slash therick. Anyway, hope you’re well. You said in your post on your other blog that you’ve got three months left of school. Is that til graduation or just the end of the semester?
Hey Joe,
Good to hear from you! I can’t believe you remember the old url. I didn’t even remember that. It was fun though. I had a contest to see who would be the ten thousandth hit. The three months is until the end of maintenance course. Flying will be a year or longer after that. I hope you guys are doing well in this new phase of your lives! Say hi to Jen.
Ricky