being a Disciple means becoming like your Rabbi

I love God-cidences. You know, those situations that come up where something happens followed closely by something else that seems to confirm the first experience? Most people refer to them as coincidences. Because I believe in a sovereign God, one who can exhert His authority to accomplish His will regardless of how blind, deaf, or dumb we are, I believe that I've experienced a God-cidence just this morning.

Via a reply to an earlier post (what is a "disciple"? - posted Friday, October 28, 2005) by a distant friend, Forrest Malloch, I was confronted and encouraged by God. You see, in his reply to the post, Forrest pointed me to a web site that had a recording of Ray Vanderlaan's "On This Rock". This was taken from Ray's video series, "That The World May Know". Ray is a high school teacher in the States, and pretty good Bible scholar. His video series are about His leading tours to the Holy Land, whereby he teaches a mixed (age, gender, ethnicity) audience about Bible stories as close to the authentic site as is possible. Okay, I've set the stage for my God-cidence. Forrest posted an invitation to go this web site, down load this message from Ray, and see what it says about radical discipleship from Ray's message, "On This Rock".

Forrest! What you could not have known when you posted this Wednesday late afternoon, was that Thursday late morning, as part of my Greek Exegesis class, we watched the video that this audio message is connected with. The main crux of the video has Ray speaking to his tour group on a hill side outside of a New Testament era city, Caesarea Phillipi, where there was a pagan religious site dedicated to the Greco-Roman demi-god, Pan, and talks about what being a disciple is based on the message out of the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew 16:13ff. This context was used by Ray to teach on the understanding of being a disciple in the N.T. era Jewish Rabbi/Disicple context. Basically, the idea is that discipleship is not about what you do. More importantly, being a disciple is about wanting to be what your Rabbi is.

The audio message I downloaded and listened to was connected with this video. It was refreshing to listen to this message after seeing the video. It went into a lot of detail, and was very engaging. The bottom line for me, to boil it down, is to say that for us as Christians, we want to be like our Rabbi, Jesus Christ. As Forrest pointed out to me, this has radical implications on little as well as big ways. Are you a Christian? Then you must be a disciple. Are you a disciple? Then you must be seeking to be like Jesus. Are you becoming like Jesus? If not, why not? Who are you being like, if not like Jesus?

Are you becoming like Jesus? This is what being a disciple is about. What are the implications?

what makes serving so hard?

it's been a question of mine for years. it's not like I'm trying to point a finger at any one person; the Lord knows it could easily point back at me. but I'm just wondering why, even as saved and being saved people, redeemed and being redeemed, filled with the Holy Spirit, we, you and me, more often than not, struggle with the idea of serving? one thing I don't believe is something someone once said, or at least I thought I heard, "it's not serving if you enjoy doing it." I don't believe that. at the same time, I don't think whether you enjoy "it" (whatever "it" is) or not matters as to whether or not you do it or not. but why do we find it so hard to serve? it's not like I really enjoyed emptying the sink of dessert plates, utensils, and coffee mugs last night after our small group left our house. but it's not like I felt like I was dying because of it either. I did it because, a) [as my wife often says] it was there and needed to be done, and, b) I didn't want my wife to think I was leaving it there for her to clear out. yet I have to say, my natural inclination is not to serve. maybe I'm way off. maybe this is just my issue. maybe this is the area of the "old" man in me that is awaiting and undergoing sanctification and transformation. I don't know. I just find that sometimes I don't want to serve. what about you? what do you think?

life just happens

there's a part of me that wakes up every day and wonders, "how did I get here?" it's like I'm this person who finds themself in an alternate reality. you see, I'm married to this great woman, we live in a nice house, and we have three good, beautiful kids. and I wonder, "what's up with this?" I look at my three kids (yes, that's them in the pic), and I think, "hey, I'm too young to have kids." but then I realize that I'm not the young kid myself anymore. when did that happen? when did I grow up? the reality is far more strange than the (you might think strange) ponderings in my mind: simply that life happens. you see, while I'm still not sure how I got here, or what's up with this, I do know that behind it all, and actually infront of it and beside it, too, for that matter, is God. and His grace has been and is at work in my life. what a comfort. what an awesome truth. no matter what else is going on; no matter how terrible things get, God is there. you see, one thing I realized a long time ago, is that I never did anything to deserve all the "good", all the "cool", or all the "wonderful" that God has either given me directly, or just allowed me to be blessed with. and that's a comfort, too. there's nothing I have to do to get God's blessings. life is just like that. or more importantly, God is just like that.

discipleship recovery

how are we supposed to live as a community of disciples when most of the people in the community only seem to be feigning disicpleship?

what pain are they hiding (or hiding from) that they won't give all of who they are?

how can we move forward together, to be the Church that Jesus talks about in John's upper room discourse?

how can we speak into each other's lives prophetically and not be judgmental?

how do we recover discipleship in our day and age?

Greek to me

I find it hard to believe that just three plus months ago, I couldn't have told you the difference between a greek verb and a greek noun, let alone declension, case, gender, or number. But as of last night, I made it through my NT Greek final exam. And it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought.

It turned out to be shorter than I thought it would be (no complaints there). Just a pericope out of John 15, verses 8 through 15. If this blog allowed for the font, I'd reprint the passage in greek, but alas, it doesn't. Needless to say, it was a good challenge. And it reminded me how good God is. I'm looking forward to using what I know, and learning more, as eventually take Greek Exegesis at some point. One thing I will say is that studying the New Testament in its original language has reminded me of the power of the words that I experienced the first time I opened a Bible to read for myself. Wow, is all I can say.

But I also want to share some thanks. First, thanks to my wife and kids for being so understanding when I had to study. I also want to thank my instructor, Lois Wilson, whose gentle spirit made learning Greek almost easy. Then I have to thank Debbie Watson, whom I was desperately hoping I would be studying Greek under, but alas and alack, didn't - Debbie was still incredibly encouraging for me. And I want to thank my students for putting up with me bringing in little nuggets of Greek into our weekly bible studies here and there.

Now I can honestly say, "it's Greek to me" and mean it.