Talitha Koum

Today I would like to look at Mark Chapter five and throw some questions out there.  For those of you two lazy to look it up, Mark 5 has three main stories in it.  The first is the story of the man possed by a demon called Legion.  Legion got its name because it was composed of many demons.  Anyway, the story goes that Jesus tells Legion to leave the man.  Legion pleads with Jesus and finally asks to be allowed to enter the herd of pigs near by.  The pigs all run into the lake and kill themselves, the farmers return to town and tell their story, Jesus is turned away from the crowd, and the man cured by Jesus is turned back to his town.  So what is the purpose of this story?  Jesus doesn't get angry at the town like He tells His disciples to do when they are rejected.  In fact, Jesus turns away the man that he healed so that he can try to bring the good news to the town.  Why is this town so different?  Another thing, Jesus gave into the demon and allowed it to go into the herd of pigs.  Why is this?  I have a theory for this one.  I feel that Jesus here is trying to demonstrate His teaching of love your enemies, but that theory could be wrong.  

The next story in Mark is of a lady who suffered constant bleeding for twelve years.  She spent everything she had on doctors but none could heal her.  Word of Jesus reached her ear and she decided to give things one last go.  Following Jesus throw the crowd she managed to touch the hem of His cloak.  It was recorded that "immediately He felt the healing power go out of Him" and he turned around to see who had touched him.  "Who touched my robe?" He demanded.  Now I;m not sure how He said it but Jesus almost sounded angry, at least how I am reading it.  Then the woman steps forward, with a very sorrowful look on her face I can imagine, and says I did it.  Immediately Jesus seems to have mood swing, and says "Daughter, your faith has made you well.  Go in peace.  Your suffering is over."  Once again we are left with some questions.  What is the significance of this passage?  Well for that we can see that faith is really all that it takes, and this passage does a good job of describing that.  Why was Jesus so angry (or at least so it seemed to me, and i could be completely wrong) that someone had touched the hem of his cloak?

The final story in this chapter is about the little girl of a leader of a synagogue.  The girl was horribly sick and the father came to Jesus asking him to save her.  On route to the father's home the child dies, but Jesus ends up saving her.  Yadda yadda yadda, the moral is never give up hope.  My real question is in the way that Jesus tells the daughter to awaken.  "Talitha koum" he said, which is arabic for "little girl, get up."  Why did Jesus use that phrase, in that language.  As far as I am concerned it is the only time the bible records a specific phrase Jesus used.  So what is so special about it?  

I posed a lot of questions in this post and not a lot of answers.  If you have an answer to any of these I ask that you could impart your knowledge to me.  I would like to know.

Until next time

Godspeed

The Sabath

Pastor Brian spoke about this in the last get out of debt series we had.  He made a point that Chick-Fil-A seems to be doing very well as a business, even in this tough economic time, but it doesn't open on Sundays.  Anyway, now that you know all that heres what I'm really planning on talking about.

In Mark Chapter 2 Jesus Speaks on the Sabath. What happens is the disciples pick some grain to eat while walking through the field.  The Pharisees see this and make note of it to Jesus.  "Look, why are they breaking the law by harvesting on the Sabath?" they said.  Jesus came back with a story about David from the old testament which does a good job of getting the disciples off the hook.  However, its what is written afterwards that I find most interesting.  To conclude the chapter, Mark records Jesus as saying, "The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of the people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath."  That's very interesting wouldn't you say.  Pretty much Jesus is saying, "Look, the sabbath wasn't made to be a challenge for you.  Meeting the requirements of the Sabbath wasn't the purpose.  The purpose is that humans have the best life we they take a day off."  We as humans need a Sabbath.  We need to take a break or else we will be burnt out.  God is pretty intelligent, He doesn't just make rules because He wants to make us struggle, He makes them because He knows that they will help us.  I'm willing to bet that we can apply this logic to the law as well.  The law wasn't created to make us struggle, it was created because humans need something to guide them, or else we would spend our lives doing a lot of junk that was not beneficial to ourselves. 

So, in conclusion, trust God.  He knows what He is talking about.  Give yourself a day off, even if you feel you can't afford it.

Thoughts

First of all I would like to apologize for not posting at all for a long while.  I kept meaning to but never got to it.

Second I would like to reflect on PCTC a little.  For those of you who don't know CCV's student ministries recently attended the Pennsylvania Christian Teen Conference held in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  It was a great trip, with truly inspirational speakers.  The theme for the weekend was John 6.66 Don't Leave and it was focused on many things in Christianity.  Another awesome fact was that we got to see Matt Silver, who was our youth pastor for a long time.  It was great getting to see him and getting caught up.

Finally on to the true topic of this post.  

Remember the story when Jesus calmed the seas?  If you don't you can go look it up, its found in Mark, chapter 4, verses 35-41.  Pretty much the disciples and Jesus were in a boat when a massive storm hit.  Jesus was asleep and the disciples got really afraid.  They new that at any second the storm could capsize the boat leaving them all dead.  So they all ran to Jesus and shouted "Teacher, don't you care that we're going to drown?"  I can imagine the fear on their faces as the waves washed over the boat.  Jesus was their only chance.  And he delivered.  Yes, Jesus quieted the waves and the wind.  However two things can be taken out of this.  

In the final verse it is stated that "The disciples were absolutely terrified.  'Who is this man?' They asked each other.  'Even the wind and waves obey him!'" Were not the disciples the ones who awakened Jesus hoping he could save them?  I mean, why were they so scared, they asked him to save them so they must have expected something would've happened.  Then again, maybe they didn't.  Maybe like most people they didn't really trust Jesus.  Maybe when they took their problem to God they didn't actually expect something to happen (just a note: I don't think that they had realized that Jesus was the Son of God yet so technically they might not have known that they were taking their problem to God yet).  Thats actually not too hard to believe.  Most people these days don't expect God to respond to their problems, but every time they bring it to Him, He does.  Even if we don't realize it, or don't expect it God always responds to our problems in some way.  That is the first thing we can take out of this story.

The second thing that we can get from this comes not from the disciple's fear, but from Jesus' anger.  When awakened Jesus was a little grumpy (and i would be to).  He got up and calmed the storm with vicious commands.  "Silence! Be Still!" He told it.  Then Jesus turned to the disciples.  "Why were you afraid?  Do you still ahve no faith?" He asked them.  That was pretty much Jesus saying, "You woke me up for this???"  Did the disciples really expect God to just let Jesus be killed by the storm?  I mean come on, even if they didn't know He was the Son of God they stil must have realized He was special.  He made a living performing miracles.  If I was Jesus I would've been like, "Come on people, do you have gray matter between your ears?!"  Honestly though, if I was in the same spot as the disciples I would have done the same thing.  See the disciples were human, just like us, and just like us, they can't comprehend that God has a plan for us, and even though the present may seem horrible, dark or scary, the result is a triumph.  We really don't have a complete trust in God.  Its almost impossible, but we should still try.

So I guess the overall topic of this post is that as humans, our trust for God is not nearly where it should be.  I think that we should make it our foremost goal to increase our trust in God to the point we truly believe that He has a plan for us.  

Until Next time,

Godspeed

The best hot coccoa ever

So i figured that i'd take a break from writing about religion for a little to tell you about one of my favorit pass-times, drinking hot chocolate.    This is my favorite recipe for it

alright, you have to buy land o lakes triple chocolate (it might be called chocolate lovers too, i can't remember) it comes in a green pouch, but anyway. Then you take you water and heat it up, while its heating you put the coccoa into a normal sized coffee cup, like the church gives out for free. (see "my addiction" album for cup size) Then you put in a decent sized scoop of french vanilla ice cream. After the water is done heating you poor it in till the cup is three quarters filled and stir till all the ice cream is melted. then fill the cup up to almost the top and check the temp. If you want it cooler you can put a little more ice cream in. If you want it warmer you can throw it in the microwave for like 3 seconds

I swear that this is the best hot chocolate you will ever have

check it out

http://www.maniacworld.com/are-you-going-to-finish-strong.html

The Parable of the Three Servants

Right now you may be saying, "its alread well documented what this parable means, why bring it up.  It is an allegory for using spritual gifts, not much else to see."  That is where I say stop and then say this:

I propose another purrpose for this Parable.  What if instead of viewing the bags of silver as metaphors for spiritual gifts, we looked at them as metaphors for the word of God.  So how bout it, that could work too couldn't it.  Lets look at it more indepth.  In the parable one servant was given 5 bags, one was given 2, and another was given one.  The servant with five bags invested it and earned five more bags.  The servant with two bags earned two more by doing something (we aren't told what).  The servant who was given only one bag burried it in the ground.  Lets look at the allegorical sense of each servant now.  The servant with five bags is someone who becomes a minister, or some other career where they spread the good news for a living.  Since they are always using the Gospel they have the best grip, and because their primary focus is bringing to Jesus they will win many converts.   The person with two bags is a person who knows Jesus, and is always willing to share the Gospel with anyone who will listen, but their career does not directly involve evangelizing.  They are the scientists, and accountants, and athletes, and musicians, and everyone else who has a belief in God.  Because they are not always using the Gospel their grasp of it is not as strong as their pastor (in most cases) and because they do not devote all of their time to making disciples of Christ they have less of a pay off.  Those two positions are where most people fit in.  The final servant did something horrible.  He was afraid.  He hid the gift he was told about.  He was perhaps afraid people would prove that his newfound faith wasn't real.  He hid this faith and ended up losing it anyway.  Thats the one place we as disciples of Christ do not want to be.  We have to be willing to spread our faith no matter what we do if the opportunity arises.

14 “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a man going on a long trip. He called together his servants and entrusted his money to them while he was gone. 15 He gave five bags of silver^[a] to one, two bags of silver to another, and one bag of silver to the last—dividing it in proportion to their abilities. He then left on his trip.

 16 “The servant who received the five bags of silver began to invest the money and earned five more. 17 The servant with two bags of silver also went to work and earned two more. 18 But the servant who received the one bag of silver dug a hole in the ground and hid the master’s money.

 19 “After a long time their master returned from his trip and called them to give an account of how they had used his money. 20 The servant to whom he had entrusted the five bags of silver came forward with five more and said, ‘Master, you gave me five bags of silver to invest, and I have earned five more.’

 21 “The master was full of praise. ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!^[b]’

 22 “The servant who had received the two bags of silver came forward and said, ‘Master, you gave me two bags of silver to invest, and I have earned two more.’

 23 “The master said, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!’

 24 “Then the servant with the one bag of silver came and said, ‘Master, I knew you were a harsh man, harvesting crops you didn’t plant and gathering crops you didn’t cultivate. 25 I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth. Look, here is your money back.’

 26 “But the master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy servant! If you knew I harvested crops I didn’t plant and gathered crops I didn’t cultivate, 27 why didn’t you deposit my money in the bank? At least I could have gotten some interest on it.’

 28 “Then he ordered, ‘Take the money from this servant, and give it to the one with the ten bags of silver. 29 To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away. 30 Now throw this useless servant into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

Well, its been a while and i'm obviously out of practice.  sorry bout the lack of clarity, but i think you will all be able to get the general meaning.  

Until next time

Godspeed

HAHA!

Finally I can get back to posting, I was really starting to miss it, but i took the full month off like i said.  Unfortunately i won't get to anything tonight, but expect to start seeing new things very soon!! to all of those who visited during the long break, thanks for continuing to check ^.^

By The way, for those of you out there who enjoy concert music the spring-ford full concert band will be giving a free concert this saturday at the Spring-Ford Ninth Grade Center.  The music is what will be performed by the Spring-Ford wind ensemble, which has been picked as on the two best bands in the state of pennsylvania, at the PMEA (Pennsylvania Music Educator's Association) this coming spring.  More info can be found on www.sfgrmu.org