“The shee-eee-eep don’t like it!

Lock the cash-box, lock the cash-box”

“Those aren’t the words…it’s ‘Mock the cat-socks’!”

“Are you sure? I’ve been singing it that way my whole life.”

Have you ever misheard a lyric in a song? Did you know there’s an actual name for that? It’s called a “mondegreen“.  Apparently it’s a very common, human experience. Psychologists say that human beings interpret their environment partially based on experience, and this includes speech perception. Dr. Mark Liberman, professor of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania, explains the phenomenon: when you hear a song “you’re getting an input signal that is muddled with background music, rhythms, and syllabification, which makes it hard for your brain to interpret everything at once.”

People are more likely to notice what they expect than things not part of their everyday experiences, and they may mistake an unfamiliar stimulus for a familiar and more plausible version.

That is an innocent enough thing when it comes to song lyrics, but we as humans can have the same trouble when interpreting people. Sometimes we misunderstand, and sometimes we are misunderstood.

Paul experienced that in a big way in the text we’ll be reading in Acts 21:17-36.

When Paul finally makes it to Jerusalem and tells of all the wonderful things God has been doing, you get the impression there is a light “golf-clap” and then everyone clears their throats and gets to the real issue of interest, namely: Paul’s bad reputation.

Have you ever brought someone some really good news only to have the subject change to something very negative right away? How did it make you feel?

Paul’s reputation is actually a misrepresentation of what he really taught and believed. A sort of doctrinal mondegreen. Paul wasn’t trying to undermine the Jewish heritage or customs, but what was he saying when he told people that “Being circumcised or not being circumcised doesn’t mean anything. What matters is a new creation.”, in Gal 6:15? Can you see how people who were defensive about their religious heritage are hearing what they expect to hear?

The leaders in Jerusalem offered a solution – go sponsor some dudes who are going through purification rituals because of living among gentiles, and do that purification yourself. Commentators are divided about the wisdom of this advice. Some believe it was a weak compromise. Others believe it was a gracious attempt at keeping peace. Read 1 Cor 9:19-22. Does this passage inform your view on Paul’s actions?

Have you ever done all you can to help someone understand your intentions but they still refuse to accept you? How does that feel, and how do you want to react? Imagine you’re Paul, having seen and done and experienced all that you have;  having bent over backwards to make your good intentions known. Imagine yourself staring up at the blue sky as you’re being passed overhead from cop to cop while an angry mob is calling for your blood. What are your thoughts right then? How could all of Paul’s reiterations of his belief that God was leading him (in chapter 20 and the first part of 21) have helped him in that moment?

This will be a challenging study…a call to be anchored in God’s grace. Hope to see you this Sunday!

 

 

 

What is the craziest bit of advice you’ve ever been given? I’d love to hear it! My dad always used to tell me: “Keep your eyes open, son…otherwise you’ll bump into things.” It was decent enough advice. Getting good advice can be very beneficial in our lives; Proverbs 12:15 says “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise person listens to advice.”

On the flip-side of that, sometimes in the context of spiritual guidance we can feel pressured by advice we receive. We’re going to be reading Acts 21:1-16 this Sunday, and Paul is going to get a lot of advice from some influential people and friends.

Why do you think the people around Paul were urging him to not go on to Jerusalem? What was motivating their advice? How do you think we can discern the distinction between good intentions and God’s will?

Sometimes we can advise people directly from God’s word on issues, such as moral ones, that apply to all of us under the divine directive. But what are some of the decisions we have to make in life that the Bible doesn’t cover, and how should we approach getting or receiving advice in those cases?

What did Paul have as his highest good when it came to his decision? How can that guide us in handling the advice people may give us?

Have you ever felt pressured to follow someone’s advice? How did you respond?

Here’s some unsolicited advice from me: you should come to Eastgate this Sunday because this is an interesting topic to explore! Also…weather-permitting….we’ll try to do Surf-N-Grill again this week! Hope to see you there!

When I think about it, the happiest and most successful people I know don’t just love what they do, they’re obsessed with solving an important problem, something that matters to them. They remind me of a dog chasing a tennis ball: Their eyes go a little crazy, the leash snaps and they go bounding off, plowing through whatever gets in the way … So it’s not about pushing yourself; it’s about finding your tennis ball, the thing that pulls you. ~ Drew Houston, founder of Dropbox

If you are a person who is passionate about something, people know it. What would the people you work with or do life with in some way say if you asked them to describe what they’ve observed about your passion?

We’re going to be continuing our study in the book of Acts this Sunday (it’s good to be back, by the by!) and in chapter 20, v 17-38, Paul describes how he had lived his passion for God out before the Ephesian people.

Paul starts off by challenging the elders of Ephesus, saying “you know how I lived among you the whole time I was with you.” – What does that tell us about Paul’s life when he wasn’t teaching in church?

Paul also describes his passion for humble service among the people he ministered to. What did his service look like, and how would it look in our church as we serve each other?

In v22 Paul makes it clear how he could serve and endure so consistently: he saw his life as belonging to Christ. He says that he was “constrained” by the Spirit. The word for that in the Greek is “deo”. The meaning of that word is found HERE. What picture does that word create in describing Paul’s relationship to Christ? How can we see ourselves the same way?

Paul warned of predators threatening the church he planted. What sort of wolves would you consider a threat to the church in our culture and time?

I’m really looking forward to digging into the Word with you all again – hope to see you this Sunday! Don’t forget Surf-N-Grill happens this Sunday, weather permitting!

Sometimes things just don’t go our way, do they? Everyone knows what it’s like to get discouraged by the events of life. Think about the things that have discouraged you lately.
Do you ever struggle with the idea that as Christians, we shouldn’t ever be discouraged? Sometimes I think we create false expectations for what it means to be a Christian
and we go through difficult times and start to get discouraged because of them…and then start feeling discouraged because we feel discouraged, because the “good Christians” in the world never do.

Here’s the thing: As followers of Christ we’ve never been promised an insulation from the things that can get us discouraged, but we have been given provisions that enable us to overcome in those times when we get down.

We’re coming to a section in our study in Acts where many scholars believe that Paul was facing his own season of discouragement. We’ll be reading Acts 18:1-17.

In 1 Cor 2:3, Paul remembered how it was that he came into the city of Corinth: “I came to you in weakness, fear and with much trembling.” When you think about it, he’s been through a lot the last few years – he’s been stoned and left for dead, beaten and thrown into jail, and riots have broken out in every city forcing him to leave town, and in Athens he’s been called a “seed-picker” and required to defend himself in front of the council of the Areopagus (heh…my spell-check wanted me to change that to “asparagus”, which made me think of what a Veggi-Tales account of Acts would look like….but that’s another story).

One of the things that Luke makes sure we know about are the specifics of the people who begin to surround Paul while in Corinth; Aquila, Priscilla, Silas, Tim, Crispus, Titius and a bunch of others as a new church begins to form. We see how it starts to invigorate Paul’s ministry. How does community and friendship provide us with encouragement when we find ourselves depleted?

Later Paul has a cool dream where Jesus tells him not to wig out, but remember that He’s still with him. What are the ways that we can seek out God’s presence and find encouragement when we’re down? What are some ways that you have experienced God’s presence? How did it affect you?

Well, the story finishes off with a rather surprising turn of events. Gallio is actually known to us in history, and his decision here shows how God works through any agency he chooses to advance his causes.

If anyone is interested there is an awesome lecture that really provides some fascinating insights about ancient Corinth – it’s found HERE. It’s about an hour long, but well worth your time.

Don’t forget that Surf-N-Grill is this Sunday! Hope to see yez there!

My dad was born in 1901. One hundred fourteen years ago. He was a preacher and he used to have a sermon called “Changes”. He didn’t know that David Bowie also had a song by that title. Honestly, he didn’t know who David Bowie was. But my dad’s sermon basically listed off all the changes that he’d seen in his lifetime. For instance, when he was born, the main mode of personal transportation was still the horse. It’s actually a funny sermon, but ironically, wildly outdated today because so much has changed in the 20 or more years since he last taught it. What made that sermon really special was how he ended it. He went through all the things that haven’t changed, like how love is still sweet and grace is still amazing. There are still commonalities in the human experience that don’t change, that are sewn from generation to generation and culture to culture.

We live in a world of vast changes that are happening so rapidly that it can be disorienting. I believe this represents a challenge for the Church. We can spend our energies trying to resist change and re-establish societal norms that provided a more comfortable space for Christianity, or we can learn a new language with which we can engage a new world with the unchanging gospel.

If we choose the latter we have a wonderful example in the Apostle Paul as he engaged Athenian culture in Acts 17:16-34, which is the passage we’ll be reading this Sunday.

Paul starts off in the Synagogue, but Luke doesn’t seem interested in that. The action moves to the marketplace, a place where philosophies and religions were exchanged as much as commodities. There Paul encounters and converses with Epicureans and Stoics.

This results in him being invited…or possibly subpoenaed to present his beliefs before the counsel of the Areopagus. He was being called a “babbler” and in a veiled threat, was suspected of trying to introduce foreign deities. It probably wasn’t as friendly as we might tend t think. In what ways has our culture become suspicious of Christianity? What are the charges leveled at us? How can that help us understand our present culture?

There Paul provides a brilliant, cross-cultural presentation of a narrative gospel. He is aware, familiar and sensitive to Athenian culture. He doesn’t out-rightly condemn, but rather, in a very complimentary way, overlays a new narrative on their existing one.

He starts by appealing to a sign-post to the true God that was already present in Athens – the altar to the “unknown god”. He uses that as his platform to present an alternate vision of reality. What kinds of altars to unknown gods does our culture have? When we think about our culture’s recent agony over race relations or hopeful enthusiasm over the LGBT marriage equality laws, how could we see those questions and longings as bridges of commonality on which we could introduce the message of Jesus?

The Epicureans believed that if the gods existed at all, they were far removed from our world. What part of Paul’s message would they have agreed with, and what would have challenged their worldview?

If you were to paraphrase what Paul presents as the Good News – what would it say?

We live in a vastly new world. If we follow Paul’s example, we won’t be filled with fear or respond in anger towards the present culture. We will learn a new language and engage a new world with the timeless hope of God’s good rule through Jesus the Messiah.

Cats can be such jerks. But y’know what’s interesting? The gospel is sort of like that cat. Not that the gospel is a jerk, but that it comes into our world and shakes things up. The claims of the gospel have a tendency to put a hand to everything on the table…and push.

This gets people upset sometimes. It certainly did in the book of Acts, which we’ll be reading this Sunday, in chapter 17:1-15.

We’ll be reading how some folks felt that Paul and company were people who were there to “turn the world upside down”.  I think if Paul were asked, he would say he was on a mission to turn the world right way up – but its all a matter of perspective, isn’t it?

The first way the gospel message turns the world upside down in this section is in the world of religion. How do you think the message that Jesus brings upsets the apple-cart in the world of religious assumptions? Has the message of Jesus and His grace upset any of your religious assumptions over the years?

The second way the gospel turns the world upside down has to do with who is ruling our lives. They complained in v7 that Paul presented “another king, Jesus”. There are a lot of things in the broken world that lay claim to our loyalties – how does Jesus interfere with this? Our loyalties can be demonstrated by our time, resources and energy. If you apply that test to your own life, where do your loyalties seem most stringent (don’t answer that out-loud, its just something to mull over)?

When Paul and company get to Berea, the Jewish Bereans are commended for “receiving” or being open minded towards the gospel “eagerly”. But this wasn’t simple gullibility, they were also commended for their discipline in regular examination of the gospel’s claims testing them against Scripture. The story seems to encourage an open mind that employs critical thinking. How open minded would you say you are when it comes to hearing things that are unfamiliar to you? How well would you say you examine and test the things you believe about God?

The gospel stares us down and pushes the glass over the edge. How do we respond?

My heart is breaking for the families of the victims of the racial terrorist attack in South Carolina last Wednesday. Only the grace of God will heal these wounds – it’s hard to imagine how God could bring something good out of this act of evil.  As followers of Christ, let’s remember that racial prejudice has no place in God’s kingdom. It is a malevolent evil that God will surely judge. Let’s be quick to reject all forms of it – and through it all, let’s pray for peace.

This Sunday we’ll be reading Acts 16:11-40. It’s a passage filled with irony, and we’ll consider the way God seems to employ irony in the way he leads us through this adventure. Situational irony is when a series of events lead to an unexpected result.

For instance, gunpowder was discovered in the process of looking for the elixir for immortality. That’s irony.

In the section we’ll be reading we’ll see several examples of “divine irony” – where expectations get upended and surprising results are revealed. Paul and Silas go to Philippi in search of a man Paul saw in a vision only to find a group of women, one of whom God plants the 1^st church of Philippi through.

A girl is demonically inspired to declare the truth about Paul and Silas and Paul, an emissary of truth stops her from saying it.

The same girl is set free from spiritual bondage which results in a loss of physical freedom for Paul and Silas.

Paul and Silas are in the worst of situations and use it as a cause for singing praise songs.

An earthquake opens the jail doors and breaks the chains but Paul and Silas remain inside the jail.

The man who does great harm to Paul and Silas is warned not to harm himself.

In all of these things God is using terrible situations to shape beautiful things. It’s just his way. How has life gone a different direction than the way you expected – how can factoring in God’s employment of irony help us to cope with bad situations?

Have you ever gone to a party thinking it was a casual get together only to find that everyone has arrived in formal attire? Have you ever been to a wedding thinking it was formal, only to discover that everyone was wearing casual clothes? How did you feel in those experiences? It’s a pretty uncomfortable feeling, isn’t it? It’s sort of how the gentile Christians of Syrian Antioch must have felt when, while they were all stoked at embracing salvation through Christ, some people came telling them that they were still not dressed right for the occasion – that their failure to keep the Law of Moses was making them conspicuous outsiders.

That is the stage on which our text for this week (Acts 15:22-35) is set.

The Jerusalem counsel decided that it wasn’t right to lay a further burden on the gentile church of keeping the law – so they drafted a letter to explain that, but instead of just emailing it to Antioch or sending an emoji text to explain things….they sent personal delegates from their church to confirm the acceptance of the gentiles. How do you think it must have felt for the gentiles in Antioch to get this news personally? Considering what a huge deal it was for Peter to even go into a gentile’s house (Acts 10), what message was this sending to them? What can we learn from this model about how love is to be expressed on a community level?

V28 indicates that this loving desire for harmony between very different churches was inspired…by Whom? Harmony in the face of disagreements is something that doesn’t just occur spontaneously, it has to be orchestrated (It’s interesting that you never read bumper stickers that say “harmony happens”). Spirit-led love will still hold fast to the truth (v24) but will seek harmony in the process. That is what rescues our expression of love from shallow sentimentalism or emotional groupthink. How can we cooperate with the Holy Spirit when we are confronted with disagreements in the community?

In v 31-32, what word is repeated twice? Between v31-33, what words are used to describe the nature and effect of this mission of reconciliation and harmony? What should we look for in evaluating our own ministries within the church community? How does this provide an example of a loving ministry?

Hope you’re enjoying the Book of Acts as much as I have been! – See you Sunday!

 

 

The Bible Project has this really great overview of the book of Leviticus – you should really take the 7 minutes to watch it before continuing to read. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

“Why did we watch that Rob?”

I’m glad you asked. I wanted you to see that the Law of Moses wasn’t some mistake God made in the past, but that it had a real point and message to it.  It succinctly sets up the crisis of how a sinful humanity is supposed to come into a relationship with a holy God.  The Law of Moses provided a system that gave Israel the confidence to believe that they could live near God’s presence even in their imperfection.

But along comes Jesus and the Good News of the Kingdom of God – and Jesus fulfills all the promises made to Israel about the removal of sin by going to the cross, and taking all the consequence of our sin on himself – thus making a way into God’s presence that requires nothing from us except faith.  It is a salvation and redemption by grace alone – based solely on God’s unmerited love for us.

Now frankly, this has been a struggle for the church all through it’s history to this very day. We don’t seem to track well with this concept. And right at the outset the gentile church in Antioch faced the challenge of a mounting legalism, which we’ll be reading about this Sunday in Acts 15:1-21.

Many scholars believe that the events of Acts 15 are the same that Paul described in Galatians 2:4-6.

Paul doesn’t mince words there. He calls these people spys, spying on the freedom that the church in Antioch was enjoying. They felt it was still necessary to obey the Law of Moses in addition to believing on Jesus. It was a Jesus plus gospel…Jesus + keep the law = salvation. That is the basic formula of legalism.

Legalism feels the need to impose a standard on others, as we see in the case of those who came to Antioch. Why do you suppose that is? When, if ever, have you been tempted to get someone conformed to your convictions? What was the result?  Have you ever been on the receiving end of that kind of pressure? How did it make you feel?

How can we avoid this sort of trap? What did the early church do and what can we learn from their conclusion?

I’m really looking forward to this study – as a recovering Pharisee myself, I feel like this is in my wheelhouse!

Hope to see you Sunday!

This Sunday we’ll be reading about the further adventures of Paul and Barnabas as they continued their missionary journey in the region of Galatia. We’ll be reading all of Acts 14.

As you read this, v4 tells us that the gospel had a familiar effect as it was introduced to the city of Iconium, what is it? How would you feel if you were these guys and constantly facing opposition for their faith? What does this tell us about the nature of the gospel and what we can expect as we attempt to represent it in this broken world?

There’s a humorous little story when they get to Lystra. An amazing healing takes place which results in people making an assumption that Hermes and Zeus have appeared in human form. They start the process of sacrificing a bull and celebrating and feasting…while Paul and Barny tear their clothes and plead with everyone to cut it out. It’s sort of alarming the things that can happen when people try to co-opt the gospel and insert it into a preconceived belief system. Have you ever seen that happen in our own world of 21st Century America? What examples can you think of that would represent a twisting of the gospel to promote an element our culture?  The gospel confronts our established belief systems – it doesn’t provide a way to manage our old gods.

in v15-18 we have an example of how Paul framed the gospel message for an uninitiated gentile audience. He declares that there is one God who is Creator. Then he describes the ways in which this God has left clues about his existence. If you were to use a single word to describe the tone of his message, what would it be? Have you ever thought about God demonstrating his reality through a good meal (v17)? There is something so clean and uncomplicated about this message, I really love it.

The gospel still ends up getting Paul in trouble – he’s dragged out of town and stoned. Miraculously, he doesn’t die…but I imagine he’s pretty busted up. When he gets up, where does he immediately go and what does he do? Is he like Kurt Russell shouting “Tell ’em I’m comin’, and Hell’s comin’ with me! That doesn’t seem to be the gospel approach. What does Paul do? What is the most natural response to mistreatment? Does this example encourage you…or overwhelm you? What can we learn about the way the gospel is made known?

Welp…hope to see you Sunday! Have a great Memorial Day weekend, and please pray for those who’ve lost so much in our national conflicts – and above all, pray for peace.