Read the Bible Through:Matthew 1-3

This is a new series that I am going to be doing. I am reading through the Bible and will record my thoughts and the overall ideas that I see expressed in Scripture as I read. I found out last semester at school that this is a great way to get to know the Word better - reading and then recording what I read.

MATTHEW 1-3
Chapter 1 of Matthew is the recording of the 14+14+14 generations that were the blood line of Jesus' earthly father from Abraham to Joseph. Luke 3 records Jesus' lineage through Mary back to Adam. Chapter 1 also talks about Jesus being born to Mary who was a Virgin and the intervention in the "divorce" of Joesph from Mary by an angel who visits Joseph. This has to do with the time before Joesph and Mary were official completely married but for all practical purposes they were married.

Chapter 2 tells of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem and the entrance of the wise men into the story. As they pass through Jerusalem, Herod hears about them and asks them to tell him when they find Jesus. He's not planning on worshiping Jesus as he says by the way.

The wise men follow the star to Bethlehem and find Jesus and Mary in a house. It sounds to me like Joseph, Mary and Jesus are living in Bethlehem. The wise men bow, worship Jesus, give him gifts, and then head back to their country after they were warned in a dream to not tell Herod.

When Herod figures out what has happened when the wise men do not return to him he sends his solders to kill all of the children two years old and younger in Bethlehem and the surrounding area (maybe Jesus may have been close to 2 years old then??).

Joseph gets another angelic visit telling hm to take the family to Egypt. They do so and the story quickly turns to the death of Herod and the angel tells Joseph to move back to Israel and ultimately to Nazareth.

Chapter 3 introduces John.  What an interesting character in the story.  Of course this chapter talks about Jesus being baptized which certainly gives importance to baptism, but I wonder how baptism was introduced and at what point it became important.  This obviously is before the resurrection, and certainly seems to have no other biblical precedent.  I will need to research this one! Stay tuned.

Awesome stuff in the first three chapters!  Why don't we spend our lives immersed in this book?

Do I remind you of Jesus?

I heard this great question today while driving home and I immediately began praying and asking God about it because it's a question that I've never honestly asked myself - "When people see me do I remind them of Jesus?". A deep question for sure.

I've thought about this a lot this evening (and I suspect I will for a few more days), and I wanted to share where I'm at with the question right now.

The first answer that comes to mind is, of course and emphatically, "No!". I have to ask myself then "Why?". I mean I do work for a Christian company, I'm going to seminary, I read Christian books, I listen to Christian podcasts and music (and like them), I have lots of Christian friends, and most importantly I am a Christian (got saved, been redeemed, accepted Christ, turned my life around, asked Jesus into my heart, walked the aisle, got religion, had a conversion experience, been baptized, etc). I'm going to heaven when I die. I see God working in my life and I give him the credit. Seemingly all of the right things. But when it comes down to it - would most people say "You remind me of Jesus"? I don't think they would.

It's not due to a poor self image or false humility that I say this! It's my external actions that reveal it, and it's the still small voice that whispers it to me. I want to publicly here over the next few days ask myself and ask you to ask yourself "How am I willing to go to let God change me to be someone who people look at and are reminded of Jesus?". I hope that some of you will begin to ask yourself the same question and will share your thoughts here!

Grace and Peace!

Mexican Coke - Not what you think!

I took the family to Central Market today. Its basically a grocery store, but its a destination grocery store! The fruit's organic, the meat's organic, the cheese, the bread - all organic and slightly more expensive. They had a live band playing in the cafe, chefs cooking over open ovens, and fast paced lively music playing over the speakers. How strange to think that we're paying $4 a gallon for gas and we're going to amusement park supermarkets. Another post for another time I guess!

We didn't buy much there but I did buy two bottles of Mexican Coca-Cola. "Why?" - you might ask. Well Coke made in Mexico still is made with cane sugar and not corn syrup. It's not a huge difference but it does make some difference in the taste. Most soft drink bottlers switched from cane sugar to corn syrup in 1984 so the soft drinks that I grew up drinking as a kid contained cane sugar and buying these Cokes today and drinking them takes me back to that time in my life when soft drinks were still in bottles and contained enough of the right stuff to make you burp out of your nose if you drank to fast! Of course drinking such things has helped me develop other bad eating habits, but as a kid it didn't matter that much.

I think of the days of being a kid and just living to play, drinking soft drinks, getting pocket change for bubble gum and trying to find a someone who had a go cart (and would let you ride it). Nothing mattered but having fun.

Sometimes I'm like that today, just so ready to have fun. That kind of short lived go cart riding, bubble gum chewing, burping out of your nose - fun. And I think sometimes I feel guilty for wanting to do so. I think I need to be so serious and need to get on with the "adult" things in life, but the truth is no adult can keep that up forever. We were made to laugh! We were made to live life to the fullest and not to make every moment about the next task that we'll accomplish or the next big step that we'll take.

So here's to Mexican Coke - May I drink it so fast that I burp out my nose!

Why, Jesus?

I've just begun reading a book named
Be Last by Jeremy Kingsley. I heard Jeremy speak several times at a Youth conference in Pigeon Forge, TN this past January (can I hear a - Runnnnnn's house - - inside joke). He is a great speaker. He took wonderfully deep, important concepts about life and brought them into focus for a room full of loud teenagers (and a few adults)!

In the first chapter he brings to life a thought in me that I, like a lot of people, have thought of or heard someone tech about before but for me it opened the door a little more and got me wondering "Why, Jesus?".

Why did Jesus come to earth when he did? Imagine a part heaven as it's described for us in Isaiah 6. God is surrounded by six angels that are in the room saying "Holy, Holy, Holy........" all day long everyday since the beginning of time until forever! Their entire job in their existence is to joyfully praise God and tell him how wonderful he is. Hard for us to understand but they actually desire to do this rather than taking time off for a vacation or rather than going out for a Latte with some friends or taking a great trip to the most amazing part of the universe. They want to stay with God telling him how great he is! Then cut to the next day. This same God who is at the peak of fame, is given all the honor and praise that Heaven can produce shows up on earth in a barn with animals and hay and dirt in the middle of the night in a city that is so packed with people that there is barely room for him and his unwed mother and blue collar father and in the middle of all of this a bunch of dirty smelly shepherds (who by the way are like social lepers) who come and want to see him. He's born on the street without a home of his own and this is the same God that created the street and the city and the country and the planet and the universe that it all exists in! Why pick this place?

Why, Jesus did you come when the largest super power on the planet was ruling over the nationality that you were born as. A Jewish child born in one of the worst times to be a Jewish child! There's no cars, planes, air conditioning, excellent modern health care, or child protection laws.

Why, Jesus did you come and spend all of your time with the people that you did? Hanging out with tax collectors, prostitues, lepers, dieing and dead, sick and blind, poor and forgotten. Telling people to not tell about what you have done for them but simply to go and stop thier sin. No self promotion, no big plans to gather armies, no apparent plan (until the end). The God that could have brought an army of angels clothed in gold and just gotten rid of it all and reigned as a king as you deserve.

You could have come today and accomplished the same thing. You have told us why you came (which seems incredible as well). But why didn't you come today or in the future when technology and society might could have afforded you a little easier life? Why just hang out with really undesirable people? Why not the middle class or members of a small church that wants to grow into a larger church?

I really don't know the answer, Jesus. But somehow I think that it is more important than I have realized before. Maybe more core to my faith and my life even after so much time and even after being so far removed from your life than I have realized. Is it a riddle or a deep theological answer? An answer that will take my entire life of reading every book or listening to every speaker or struggling with all of my life to discover the deep hidden or guarded meaning? Or is the answer as simple as the words you spoke and the life that you lived? Maybe these examples will fill the void in my life - the longing for more stuff that I have - the longing for something new to do or the longing to get deeply interested in and sped my time and money doing. The answer to the questions of life.

I really do wonder - Why, Jesus?

Finances and Housing at Seminary, Part 2

Image via WikipediaYesterday I talked about the two most scary questions in moving to Texas to attend seminary : "Where would we live?" and "How would we support ourselves financially?". I covered our housing yesterday and I'll cover our finances in this post.

Everyone that we've spoken to here at seminary has a different take on making it financially. Several people that we have met have had enough money from the sale of their homes to be able to come and live without working (especially folks that are coming for a two year program). We sold our home and had enough money to be debt free but not enough to live without working.

So the questions became "Could we make it working part-time and going to school full-time or working full-time and going to school part-time or do I work full-time and go to school full-time?".

Then there is the question of "Could we get support from our church, friends and/or family?". There is a strong feeling at DTS that churches and family should support seminary students. We all would love that to be possible, but many people (myself included) come from smaller churches. But it is important to remember to not say no for your church, family or friends. A lot of people have told me that financial support may come from some of the most surprising places or people and that it's up to the Holy Spirit to move people's hearts. We have planned our money as closely as possible but God has done a lot of amazing things to supply our needs.

My job situation has been scary but God has provided amazingly. I hope to be able to share some amazing stuff by early next week. But even with a full-time job money isn't overly plentiful so it is important to be frugal and diligent in keeping up with the bills.

One important thing that I want to mention is to suggest that anyone going to seminary try as hard as they can to come out of seminary debt free. Pay for it along the way - pray hard about this. You don't want to come to the end of 2 or 4 years and owe more than you can make in a ministry position - that will making serving difficult(er).

Again like I said yesterday, don't let any of this scare you away. Wait for God to open the doors and wait for God to give you and your spouse the desire to attend seminary. Be patient and know that he will use this situation of getting to seminary or getting to anywhere in life to build our faith in him. He will use circumstances to grow you in the ways that you need to grow in life. Welcome the challenges and let them build your faith in a Heavenly Father that loves you more than you can imagine!

Finances and Housing at Seminary

Image via WikipediaFor my family the two most scary questions in moving to Texas were : "Where would we live?" and "How will we support ourselves financially?". I'll cover our housing in this post and our finances in the next one.

We spent a considerable amount of time online looking at apartments, looking at campus housing and looking at rental houses. Apartments in our price range tended to be dangerous (i.e. the neighborhoods) or too small. DTS has campus housing which are apartments. They were very nice, but a little small for our family of five, plus no pets (a sacrifice for the short term, but we haven't felt we wanted to make that sacrifice). So we ended finding a house to rent. The good houses, like the apartments, were a little more expensive, but for us offered the best option.

But there have been a few gotchas! One big gotcha has been the cost of utilities instead of $200-$250 that we paid at our home in South Carolina (which we considered to be really high) we are paying thus far in Texas around $450. I think mostly because of the age of the home (poor insulation, appliances don't appear to be energy efficient, etc).

The second gotcha were bugs - mostly ants and few roaches. They haven't been a huge deal but we were responsible for this and not the landlord according to the huge multi-page contract that we signed.

There was also a surprise with renting - we both had to be here in person to sign the lease! We thought that was odd but we were told this by several renters. We are still unsure if this was true!

The other scary fear/question for us was about the finances. I'll talk about this one tomorrow, but in the mean time don't let any of what I have said scare you. It's all worth it!! I'll talk more about this in the next two posts!! In the mean time remember God owns it all and is faithful!

Update 1

Update 1 from wonderingfellow on Vimeo.