January 2011
37 posts
Wsup Ketchup?: In You I Find My Beauty →
wsupketchup:
The media’s got us so brainwashed. Why is it empowering for women to be sexually promiscuous? And why is marriage portrayed like this perfect state we need to reach? There is so much brokenness, even in marriage.
Broken people need a savior not another broken person. Only then, can a…
So right. Ahhhhhhhhhhh Every Young Man’s Battle was instrumental for me. My pastor...
Expectations are Unjustification for Anger at people.
Confusingly, God Expects nothing from the best, Making the last, first.
The Law given to Moses is clearly written as an example of a system based on negative rights—that is, we have rights that people not abuse us, not take our stuff, not kill us, that kind of thing.
The Law given by Jesus is clearly written as an example of a system based on love, and the only way to know how to love is to follow his example as he follows his Father.
Less follow-the-rules,...
The story is well-known: Servant #1 owes a gajillion trillion dollars, begs for patience, and the master forgives him. Servant #2 owes like $20 to Servant #1, begs for patience, and Servant #1 throws him in prison. Master calls in Servant #1, and the master is not happy:
“Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” In anger his master handed him over to...
The first half of Matthew 18 is so beautiful.
Don’t let the little ones stumble, says the Father. They’re mine, he says. Treat them badly—and you’re getting rebuked. Being rebuked by the Father is no serious matter. Oh! That’s what the “bind on earth bind in heaven” thing means! that we have the Father’s authority behind us! because he cares.
...
5LoveLanguages
wsupketchup:
I got spending time with people. Interesting. I don’t know why I didn’t expect it. I agree completely.
The lowest-ranking language is equal in importance to the highest-ranking language, because you can inadvertently reject someone’s attempt to show you love.
Honesty →
If you want to help me out, please do with three minutes of your time. Thanks.
Twin walls of water— Rising high and crashing down. His face is better.
I’m starting to realize that I want this life to be over, because I so badly want to see the face of Christ.
But I’m here for something, and that’s good too.
Funny how the Israelites immediately complain that they have no water (water, of all things!), and the disciples are rebuked for their lack of...
xpassionfruit:
stop and stare I think I’m moving but I go nowhere yeah I know that everyone gets scared but I’ve become what I can’t be, oh
stop and stare you start to wonder why you’re here not there and you’d give anything to get what’s fair but fair ain’t what you really need
(I’m on fire) I can finally breathe, (when You’re near me) Suddenly alive; (I’m on fire) I can...
The parallels between the Old and New Testament readings have been rather striking, as I never realized just how linked the two are.
First, we have the sign parallel. Pharisees demand signs, but Jesus knows they won’t believe—just like Pharaoh. Jesus has, in fact, been doing signs all along; the Pharisees and others, like those from his hometown, just refuse to believe.
Next, we see...
It’s almost painful to read how utterly destroyed Pharaoh’s heart is. He’s in tatters. He’s got a cracked shell surrounding an oozing infected slime of a heart, and he’s dying. He’s dead. He’s gone.
But on the other hand, Jesus finds a woman who speaks beautifully:
Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.
I say beautifully,...
Jesus’ “parable”:
Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”
His explanation:
“…whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these...
Fear drives Moses to beg God not to let him speak. This ends up having disastrous consequences in the future, with distrust and separation breaking unity of the Israelites to Moses and God, but in the interim, God lets Aaron do it, because God gets things done.
Is it a desire to look good? What did Moses fear?
Self-preservation has never been the answer. Peter, on the water, recognized that the...
straight out of notes: [bracketed sections not from notes]
us and them
us:
blessed—increasing
“vigorous”
ballsy—faith “fear God”
them:
afraid [uh oh, the Hebrews will overthrow us…]
weak [make other people do work for them / can’t stand up to party guests]
tricky/douchey [kill John just for the sake of your oath? kill babies because you...
From Jacob’s last blessing over his sons:
Benjamin is a ravenous wolf; in the morning he devours the prey, in the evening he divides the plunder.
Hehehe plunder! I don’t see myself as very wolf-like though. Ravenous, yes. But what am I doing awake in the morning?!
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From Jesus’ question...
Young before old; Death before life; Growth before seed; Weed before wheat; Bad before good.
1. Pride is a powerful ally, but ultimately he will drag you down to hell.
Joseph has to release all his pride before he can be reconciled. I honestly think there was some tension—he really struggled with being the judge of his brothers, especially after having been a judge of people as Pharaoh’s number one gun.
Judah’s pride convinced him that he could sell his brother into...
“Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations. He will not quarrel or cry out; no one will hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, till he has brought justice through to victory. In his name the nations will put...
Joseph’s cloak is caught by Potiphar’s wife. Ironic, because wearing his ornate coat was part of the reason his brothers sold him out.
I’m not sure he could have done anything to prevent the situation (maybe not wear a cloak? but that’s impossible to predict). Ironic, because telling Potiphar about the wife like he told Jacob about the brothers probably wouldn’t have...
This is the first half of the story of Judah.
Judah was born to Leah, the fourth in a series of four (two were added later). His name means something similar to “praise”—as Leah says, naming him, “This time I will praise the LORD.”
Judah sells his brother Joseph into slavery, undercutting his older brother Reuben’s plan to just rough Joseph up a little. Judah...
Identify
But they replied, “Should he treat our sister like a prostitute?”
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As she breathed her last—for she was dying—she named her son Ben-Oni [“son of my trouble”]. But his father named him Benjamin [“son of my right hand”].
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...
I looked up “meaning of Israel” via Google and got this:
We can not say with certainty what the name Israel is supposed to mean, although it seems to reflect a certain inability of the Almighty God, namely the not being able to defeat a man like Jacob. We can be sure that God doesn’t lack the physical strength to eradicate any human being, so we must conclude that the...
Deceit comes from deceit. Jacob deceived Esau, so he was deceived by Laban.
It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. The secret is that we’re all sick. It’s just a matter of recognizing the problem, and that we need mercy, because we’re all in terrible shape.
He was standing in front of me, and I cursed him.
How often does true glory slip through our fingers? Doing what deserves to be done, singing what deserves to be sung.
I can’t say I was rooting for Esau, but to lose your blessing… because your father didn’t know your voice well enough?
Isaac…touched him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the...
Family.
Isaac followed after Abraham and made the exact same mistake:
When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” because he was afraid to say, “She is my wife.” He thought, “The men of this place might kill me on account of Rebekah, because she is beautiful.”
Of course, God says to him, “I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and your...
I think God is in the business of giving gifts.
Sandwiched by “don’t judge people” and “don’t believe false prophets” and “don’t worry about tomorrow” and “don’t go down the broad road” we have this:
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks...
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
I’d be very content with making this my favorite verse.
Amidst quite a lot of questionable “moral” decisions, Abraham shows me that God is not impressed with how pristine our outer image is. By the Law came the knowledge of sin, yes—but if we recognize our...
Negotiations? We’ve lost all communications!
Silly Phantom Menace quotes aside, the dialogue really carries this section. God, angels, Abraham, Sarah, Lot, Sodomites, Lot’s daughters, and finally, Jesus and all believers.
A few things:
10 people… was Abraham thinking (Lot + wife + two daughters + two sons-in-law + four parents of sons-in-law)? Heroic effort, but not good...
You have to give Abram credit for this: when God tells him to do something, he does it. When left to his own devices…
[Sarai] said to Abram, “The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.”
Abram agreed to what Sarai said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar...
Prophecy of a nation, battling kings, and smoking firepots—and oh yeah, the most unintuitive sermon ever! Weird reading today…
I have to admit, Genesis is so fast paced that I wish I could spend an entire year just on Genesis. SO MUCH is going on.
I don’t know what to make of the whole Lot situation: I just don’t know what to think about him. Is he a good guy? Does he...
1. “Semite” means “descendent of Shem”?!?! Didn’t know that…
2. I like how the fundamental problem of accomplishing anything is communication. If people can’t speak the same language (literally or metaphorically), the whole project really is doomed. The problem of an economy based on selfishness, in a nutshell, is that it relies on the natural human...
Live version: amplified, cross faded in, and crowd...
The raven flies in Circles because he is strong. Pilgrim doves come home.
I sometimes wish I could understand what goes on in someone else’s head. When you pull back for a couple seconds and realize that A) you are very, very small and that B) people (including you) are very, very complicated, it can be rather disorienting. I do it every few days—I mean, I try to imagine what it would be like to have one of God’s powers (specifically, insight into...
Three things (with key words bolded):
1. Because the image of God is (in)valuable, acting as an animal is a rejection of the gift. This gives God the right to reject us. Fortunately, as soon as we disobeyed, God had a new covenant in mind—one founded not on obedience, but on second chances.
2. At least one animal could talk in the garden. Some anthropologists say that speech is what...