An Answer

An Answer

Mihaela, my daughter

Waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Day after day. Week after week. Month after month. Year after long year.
Waiting.

Rushing.
Running.
Moving.
A phone call. An answer to prayer. A dash of activity. A baby daughter is here.
Hurrying.

Learning.
Discovering.
Persisting.
A first step. A first word. Counting and the alphabet. Off to school to read, to write, to know.
Understanding.

Growing.
Developing.
Expanding.
A young lady. A protective sister. A pleasant student. A lovely daughter.
Maturing.

Hoping.
Praying.
Yearning.
May she be light. May she be salt. May she seek to glorify You. May she have Your heart.
Pleading.

Grateful.
Appreciative.
Pleased.
A daughter of beauty. A daughter of grace. A daughter of mine.
Thankful.

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Mihaela is the "Star Student" in her class this week, a program by which the teacher highlights each student for a week so that they can all get to know each other.  As part of the program, the parents are asked to write a letter to their student that is read in class.  I wrote my daughter this poem for that assignment.

Week 19 - Dealing with Truthfulness

We live in an era marked with marketing gibberish. Our world is surrounded by slick words designed to artificially elevate the stature of whatever is being described. We no longer have employees, but “associates.” Students no longer fail, but “face academic challenges”. We bribe politicians through “campaign contributions” and they make good on the bribe by budgeting “earmarks.” We’ve become a wary people, always questioning what “wiggle room” could possibly be present when we hear a word; what does it really mean?
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Week 18 - Dealing with Marriage

Christianity is filled with the struggle to adjust the idea of marriage with the reality of living in a sinful world. That struggle makes this very short passage to be one of the most difficult and controversial sections in the Sermon on the Mount.

One of the goals of this study has been to really try and understand the culture and people to whom Jesus is speaking. Therefore, it is important to note that, marriage, and subsequently divorce, in the ancient world had tones and aspects that are dramatically different than in the modern world. Thus when we study the biblical texts that deal with these issues, then much caution needs to be exercised in applying the concepts. This passage is unquestionably addressing marriage as it was understood in the first century Jewish world. While, timeless truths emerge from these texts as objectives and expectations of God upon His people for all times, a one-to-one transfer of the surface meanings of the texts is impossible and leads to twisted, false understandings.

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Week 17 - Dealing with Lust

As our study continues in the "parting of the Yoke," we see Jesus address the sexual norms of his society and how the 7th commandment had been misinterpreted and misapplied.
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Week 16 - Dealing with Anger

As previous lessons have covered the “You have heard it said…but I say unto you…” has been interpreted to imply that whatever Jesus is going to teach is different from his predecessors. However, we know now this is a common rabbinical language to issue a binding or loosing of a text. This study we are going to be look at the binding Jesus places on his followers in regard to murder and anger and discover how this teaching moves us up toward the peak of piety.
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Week 15 - Binding and Loosing

We are starting a new section of the Yoke. For the next six lessons we will be examining some of Jesus’ “new” interpretations of the Law. These teachings all follow a pattern of beginning with the phrase “You have heard it said…” and end with “but I say to you….”

If you remember from our first few lessons, we learned that this language was common for s’mikah rabbis. We contrasted the language used by Torah Rabbis, who would say “It is written…..and it means…..” with the s’mikah Rabbis and their phrase “You have heard……BUT I tell you……..”

To a rabbi and to a first century Jew, this phrase was part of the “Binding” and “Loosing” formula. In the next six weeks we will see several examples of Jesus “binding and loosing” so we need to have an understanding of what that is.



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Week 13 - Light to the Nations

Jesus has spent his introduction telling the listeners what his yoke is about, now he is going to tell them why God wants them to take up this yoke. Jesus uses four metaphoric images to accomplish this. We covered the first of those metaphors last week: Salt of the Earth. The other three are very closely related: Light of the World, a City on a Hill, and a Lamp on a Stand.

Jesus grabs hold of these metaphors to continue to remind the followers of God’s purpose for them. He reminds them of their purpose, to be a beacon of hope to the world. Jesus starts this part by reminding the audience about the role God had intended for His people to play in the world all along. Since the time He set them apart (Genesis 12:3)#, God has expected His people to act as a pointer to Him for the other nations of the Earth (Psalms 67, 96, 117 and Isaiah 42:1, 4, 6).
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Week 12 - Salt of the Earth

Jesus has spent his introduction telling the listeners what his yoke is about, now he is going to tell them why God wants them to take up this yoke.

We now move away from the principles of the yoke and look into the purpose of the yoke.  This is the first of four metaphors utilized by Jesus to call his followers to his purposes.
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Week 11 - Blessed are those who are Persecuted for Righteousness Sake

As we continue to study the beatitudes we have been focusing on the second set of them that deal with having righteous relationships with other people. Mercy, pure in heart, and peacemaker all relate directly to how we relate to other people. To have a righteous relationship with God, we need to live in righteous relationship with one another.

As we conclude the Beatitudes, we encounter the first one that not really an inner-righteousness/heart attitude to have. Instead, it appears, on its surface to be more about others’ reactions than my actions.
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Week 10 - Blessed are the Peacemakers

As we continue to study the beatitudes we have been focusing on the second set of them that deal with having righteous relationships with other people. Mercy, pure in heart, and peacemaker all relate directly to how we relate to other people. To have a righteous relationship with God, we need to live in righteous relationship with one another.

The fact is that in the real world people will conflict. We have different personalities, gifts, histories, and views of the world. When you put people together and ask them to interact, those different parts of the personal narrative will inevitably clash and lead to conflict. How we work around and through these conflicts directly reflects on how we relate to one another.

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Week 09 - Blesed are the Pure in Heart

 When we think of purity of heart we might think of having completely pure, blameless, sinless lives, or perhaps a heart that is pure from temptations and sins (primarily, we think of the sexual ones). Sometimes our connotations of what the Bible means actually limit drastically the implications of its teaching for our lives.

A person who is pure in heart is a person whose motives are pure when they helping others. When they see a need, they truly want to help without any thought of what that means for them. We can contrast this with people who help others so that they can get something in return.
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Week 08 - Blessed are the Merciful

The first four beatitudes generally focus on how to live in relationship with God, our so-called "vertical relationship."  The second four generally focus on to live in relationship with one another, our "horizontal relationships."  The two are tightly connected.  A person in a relationship with God will treat other people in a manner that reflects His nature and His attitudes towards people.

Mercy is all about how we look at other people. We treat them as best we can, even better than ourselves. I think there is a parallel to the first beatitude, poor in spirit. A person ‘poor in spirit’ recognizes his true worth before God. A merciful person recognizes his true worth before other men. He understands that “There but for the grace of God, go I” and treats others accordingly.


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Week 07 - Blessed are those who Hunger and Thirst

Here are the notes that I came up with before class. This class, though, took a turn turn that I didn't expect, but had planned on going to in later weeks. So, we went ahead talked about some of those thoughts and get a preview of a radical way of viewing our freedom in Christ.

I have summarized those ideas in the Introduction of next week's study, so you will be able to see the preview there. We will look at this more in-depth later in the study.



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Week 06 - Blessed are the Meek

We continue our look at the different verses in the Beatitudes by looking at meekness.


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Week 05 - Blessed are those who Mourn

We look at the second verse of the Beatitudes poem, mourning.








Teacher Notes:

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Week 04 - Blessed are the Poor in Spirit

We will now begin a verse-by-verse analysis of the Sermon on the Mount, starting with look at each of the beatitudes one at a time.








Notes:

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Week 03 - The Principles of the Yoke

Many historical and research document start some sort of introduction to the rest of the paper. with These introductions are usually succinct, but powerful and overarching, explanations of a broad concept that will be explained in detail later on.

These introductions set the expectation for the audience and give them a preview of the content. The Sermon on the Mount is no different. Jesus starts this sermon with a poem we call the Beatitudes that sets the stage for a transformational way of looking at life.

Notes:

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Week 02 - The Lay of the Land

South Saskatchewan River valley

Context matters. So, before you can jump into and study each verse, one needs a 20,000 foot overview of the entire sermon. I used the Book Survey Bible Study Method to try and get a good idea how the sermon is structured as a whole.





My "teacher" Notes:

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The chart I created to show how the Sermon on the Mount is structured to look like a mountain. It builds up to the "Peak of Piety" and then descends back into practical applications:
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Week 01 - Seeing Jesus as a Rabbi

To truly understand the Sermon on the Mount, we need to have a historical and anthropological framework. This means understanding how first century Jews would have viewed Jesus.



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Sermon on the Mount Small Group: Plan

After taking a long break from leading a small group, Erin and I have delved back into this very important ministry. We will be using the Sermon on the Mount for the studying portion of this small group. Like always, I will try to make the materials available on my blog for others to use.

Here is a very tentative outline and schedule of the different things we will be looking at.



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