Date: 03 Apr 2000
Time: 02:24:17
Reading this, it strikes me how very fragile our psyche can be and how easily discouraged our generation can become.
Think for a moment of our - my - response to the reception that the Apostle Paul or Jesus or many of the early church leaders might have been.
Why do we measure things so often from a success / failure in the worlds eyes point of view? Have many of us been beaten or imprisoned for our preaching? Have we been disowned by friends and family? Yet when a Pastor Parish Comittee or Board of Deacons or whatever ones polity holds protests we often back down or look for a move or at least whine and feel misused.
Vs 8 blows me away! I think it ties in well with the Gospel lection for this week too. Pastor Bill in upstate NY
Date: 03 Apr 2000
Time: 15:29:23
It is interesting that God demands obediance to commandments, but had never experienced obediance before. Throught the life that Jesus suffered throught God now can say (just like so many parents)I've been there, I chose to obey. this concept facinates me. It may tooo abstract for a good sermon, but maybe not. Why did Jesus qualify to be great high priest, through obediance, if I understand verse 9 correctly. A high priest that can identify with our own struggles with obediance, and yet petition the Father on our account, because He (Jesus) was obediant. Musing in Missouri - Darren
Date: 08 Apr 2000
Time: 16:05:29
testing
Date: 3/30/2003
Time: 12:26:03 PM
Bill's comments are so true..... as commissioned lay pastor, sometimes don't have confidence ... not as much schooling as others..... but when confidence comes from prayer and knowing being sent from other than "man" .... is suffering also accepting our limitations and leaning on the Word that we are teaching? pastor paula ...... buffalo, ny
Date: 4/3/2003
Time: 11:06:36 AM
Jesus' prayers were heard but the path he had to follow was apparently never changed...I don't recall that I have ever suffered because of obedience to God..... or that I have ever really been obedient toward anything that is "ultimate". I may conform my behaviors to the norms of culture, or may begrudgingly fulfill the tax laws; and I suppose I have 'suffered', but am sure that little of the 'suffering' is related to being a follower of Jesus. So, I come to this text and find it confounding,elusive. I struggle to be tuned into obedience and suffering language. Aslanclan
Date: 4/3/2003
Time: 5:06:20 PM
Aslanclan Could you say a little bit more with what you are thinking. I don't quite understan your take on this Scripture, and I'd like to understand
Shalom
pasthersyl
Date: 4/4/2003
Time: 8:41:38 AM
Darren,
Do I understand you to say that Jesus obeyed all the commandments? I believe Jesus did not sin, but he did work on the Sabbath, clearly interpreting the law in a very merciful manner. What do you think?
Michelle
Date: 4/5/2003
Time: 9:25:04 AM
Pasthersyl--I'm not sure what I was attempting to say either! I'm not much clearer days later. I guess I struggle to grasp the relationship of being a disciple--following the example of our teacher in obedience, suffering and death--and my actual daily life. The Hebrews passage, "he learned obedience through what he suffered."
I have had sorrow, grief and death in my life...and that is certainly a source of pain. I have good health and bad teeth, so when the teeth act up that is both physical and fiscal pain...but somehow, these events seem to be a part of the norm of being alive. I may learn something from the experiences, but what?
So, if I preach on the meaning of suffering, obedience, death in our lives as followers of Jesus(this text and gospel text)what is the life experience this connects to? I do not equate the sorrows of life to the suffering/losing life for the sake of the gospel.
Anyway, this is about as clear as mud, too. I won't be using this material this week! Aslanclan