Continuing to explore the primary values among the earliest Jesus followers, we find a healing is more than a magic story in Acts 3, and that being right - as in being right with God - has nothing to do with correctness in 1 John 3, but everything to do with children and family.
The nature of relations between people was always a major concern for Jesus. Judaism and its understanding of righteousness under the Torah-Law often called for separation and exclusion from certain others. Jesus seems to have a different viewpoint, a God's-eye viewpoint, perhaps with its roots in the creation stories from Genesis. When we find out what is not good in God's eyes, we learn something that Jesus may have figured out, too.
This viewpoint would seem to be guiding Peter and John in the Temple healing story in Acts 3. The one who was passed-by by the righteous worshipers, or maybe thrown a charitable tidbit, is not met with such indifferent acceptance by Peter and John. They don't accept his broken condition, not only physically but also spiritually broken. They act.
Some of the same themes as last week continue in 1st John, trying to sort out right from wrong, righteousness from sinfulness, and what one's new life in Christ meant. We end up asking the text repeatedly, "What is right?" We finally get an answer. Discover more about these passages and what they mean in the sermon video below and the downloads below the video panel.
The nature of relations between people was always a major concern for Jesus. Judaism and its understanding of righteousness under the Torah-Law often called for separation and exclusion from certain others. Jesus seems to have a different viewpoint, a God's-eye viewpoint, perhaps with its roots in the creation stories from Genesis. When we find out what is not good in God's eyes, we learn something that Jesus may have figured out, too.
This viewpoint would seem to be guiding Peter and John in the Temple healing story in Acts 3. The one who was passed-by by the righteous worshipers, or maybe thrown a charitable tidbit, is not met with such indifferent acceptance by Peter and John. They don't accept his broken condition, not only physically but also spiritually broken. They act.
Some of the same themes as last week continue in 1st John, trying to sort out right from wrong, righteousness from sinfulness, and what one's new life in Christ meant. We end up asking the text repeatedly, "What is right?" We finally get an answer. Discover more about these passages and what they mean in the sermon video below and the downloads below the video panel.
| 04-15-18-the_new_community-new_and_sacred_relations.pdf |
| 04-15-18-ff-answers.pdf |