The Week in Review
It was a good week at Tov Unleashed.
We opened the week with an essay on Jesus and Wounded Survivors.
Compassion for the needy requires compassion for survivors of sexual and power abuse. There are many in our churches today who are wounded survivors. Some are sitting silently in their pain; some are participating without anyone knowing their pain; some are engaged in efforts for other survivors; they are all sensitive to survivors. Some have been wounded because they shared their wounds.
We are called to follow Jesus into care for survivors and to being survivor-sensitive communities of faith that provide safety and healing for survivors. Here are some texts for us to consider today, and these texts from the New Testament can provoke us to deeper concern and care for the survivors in our midst.
Then we turned to Mike Bird’s new book, taking the Bible seriously but not literally.
Literally now means something is true in an exact sense and something emphatic, even if not true in a “literal” sense! Bird has fun with this one (as he us prone to do).
No one takes the Bible literally all the time: no sword will fly from the mouth of Jesus (Revelation).
What we need to do is to learn to take the meaning of the Bible seriously. Ah, that word is “meaning.” What does it mean?
Meaning is a web of connections that moves from the basic comprehension of the text and its significance. OK, that’s another buzzing nest. Bird very very helpfully discusses the three dimensions of meaning, leaving us without some certaintist approach to Bible reading but one that we all know from the experience of reading it.
A small Christian community in Athens Ohio is featured in our post about Good Works community.
When Christians join hands in mission with one another, some practices emerge as essentials. There is a community of believers focusing on sheltering the needy in Athens Ohio called “Good Works,” and their leader (Keith Wasserman) and a friend (Christine Pohl) have produced a book describing their life together in mission. This book, however, is not just for those who live in community because it provides a blueprint for what will be valued by any church that wants to work closely together in mission. Their book is called Good Works: Hospitality and Faithful Discipleship.
Gardner C. Taylor, a wonderful preacher and pastor of yesteryear, reminds us of his mission: “I’d rather have Jesus.”
I’ve known people of great wealth, but I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold; I’d rather have Jesus than riches untold. I have heard great auditoriums echo with acclaim from one end of the earth to the other. You name it – New York, Cleveland, Chicago, London, Tokyo, Miami- but I’d rather have Jesus than people’s applause.
I have known great people -. Malcolm and Martin. Once preaching in Old First Church here in Princeton about twenty-five years ago, I spent a morning with Albert Einstein. But I’d rather hear the gospel of Jesus Christ than all of the wisdom of scientific genius. No matter how famous or obscure the preacher, no matter whether highly educated or prayerfully self-taught, no matter whether male or female, I’d rather hear from him or her the riches of the pure and simple gospel than all of the astonishing insights of science. I’d rather have Jesus; I’d rather have Jesus than anything this world affords. I’d rather have Jesus.
Fridays are for lectures and I gave an outline I’ve used at times on the “I am” sayings of Jesus.
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