THE ONE YEAR BIBLE CLUB

         In our reading today we are admonished  by God  to be  "kind to the poor".  I believe Christians today are confused on this whole issue of " the poor ". Perhaps it stems from Jesus condoning the breaking of the alabaster jar on himself and when the disciples criticize this act and say, "what a waste, the bottle of perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor", Jesus rebukes them and says, "the poor you will always have with you, what she has done is a good thing".  We almost see a disregard for the poor being reflected in Jesus' statement. Sometimes the Church can project an anti-sympathy for the poor, "the poor are like that because they refuse to serve God, or they deserve it or they are just lazy people that want to collect welfare, they don't want to work....blah...blah..." and what this can create in Christians is a lack of empathy for the poor. Christians may be insensitive to the needs of the poor...

   " Some men were set apart for the ministry of prophesying " That's interesting....the text goes on to say  "t he sons of Asaph were under the supervision of Asaph, who prophesied under the king " Imagine your ministry is always to prophecy? I wonder if they ever just prophesied something, for the king, that really was more them, then it was, actually God speaking?  Do we ever do that? Have we ever prophesied, "thus saith The Lord" but it really is " thus saith me ". It's not necessarily evil, neither is it a blatant lie like the false prophets during Jeremiah's time, but yet, they are not really words from God. God actually speaks on this issue, The Lord says, "they prophecy out of the premonitions of their own heart"  It's not "necessarily evil", they hear a sermon, are moved by it, think of a few scriptures that could attach to that sermon and they are really in agreement with the sermon and next thing you...

  Some might be surprised, in the reading today, at the scope and enormity of The Temple duties. "The duties of the Levites was to help..."  So I guess now that we are all New Testament believers, we know that Old Testament ministry has fallen by the wayside...or has it? Hundreds or perhaps even thousands, (depending on the size of your church) just show up each Sunday and everything seems to just be functioning fine.  I remember as a child I put a tooth under my pillow at night and in the morning, "shazam" the tooth was gone and money was in its place.  How did that happen? To be honest, I really didn't care, as long as I got the money.  Many believers show up to church every week-end and "shazam" everything is working and in its place.  How did that happen?  Like, me, as a child, they probably have the same sentiment, "who cares".  The fact is, the care and functioning of the Temple takes a lot of hands.  For the Temple to function man...

    I remember sometime before either my sister or myself, came to know Christ, my sister had changed her Dog Tags (we were both in the Marine Corps) to read “Jewish” as her religion. I was dumbfounded by this. My Dog Tags had “Roman Catholic” in scripted on them. My sister was always eccentric, but this was odder than ever to me and to a family that grew up in the French Province of Quebec , we were Caucasian French Catholics, where did Jew fit in with that? And who would want to be a Jew anyway? In my eyes, Jews were strange people. I grew up around many Jews in Montreal . We had a whole Community in Outremont , of Orthodox Jews, with their side locks or side curls, black hats and long black trench coats. They seemed to be the most religious people in the City. Who would want to be religious, who would want to be a Jew? What was wrong with my sister? In our text today Paul makes this profound statement, “For you are not a true Jew just because you were born of Jewish paren...

  Mark this day in your bible, this is the establishment of “The Church” as we know it today. David has the best of intentions, but the best of intentions from the best of people does not always produce the best of results. We can begin to view certain people, especially of “the clergy” as people that can do no wrong and say no wrong. Nathan himself is caught up in this and is so quick to tell David, “do whatever you have in mind, for God is with you”, but Nathan is completely wrong.   The  Temple  is built, this we know, by David’s son and we are still recovering from the effects of this decision to put God in a building. In the middle ages, also known as the Dark Ages, the structure, the edifice, the building became man’s sole connection with God. It was a cold existence; man’s relationship with God became the structure, stained glass windows, cathedral ceilings, sacraments, and ceremony. All this was introduced   to substitute  the inner relationshi...

 IN our reading today we get some insight about what happened in the past,...that didn't work! Wouldn't we all like to get insight into why our efforts have failed in the past! Today, we get insight as to why they failed to bring in "The Ark of The Covenant". The insight is that they didn't do it "the right way" and because they didn't, they fell flat on their faces and failed. We, in our super-spirituality say, "well, let's just do it and God is God, it will all work out". However it doesn't all work out, they fail and God never says a thing! Are we catching this! There's Grace, God will cover.......not this time! People actually died! God says, "you didn't seek me about "the right way" to do this; and you didn't even seek me after you failed, so I will just sit here and watch you fall flat on your faces". The confession/admittance in our text today is that "we didn't do it the right way and...