Something Different

I”m going to mix it up a little bit today.

Chapter 14 thoughts: What jumped out at me was the mention of the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame twice. We often quickly gloss over who this could be. What if we put a little twist to these. The poor could still mean the poor but the crippled could be those who are going through tough times. Life has crippled them. They may have recently lost a loved one, a job, or some other tragedy has hit. What if the blind were those who don’t yet confess Jesus as Lord. What if the lame are those who are socially awkward for us. I’m just throwing this out as additional ideas for who we should invite over. Now before some of you charge us with labeling you because we invite you over to our house know that we invite everyone – friends and the above and that you are probably in the friends category. Doing the above is hard it is part of the cost of being a disciple.

Chapter 15: I remember studying this passage for our series Pop Up Parables and what was interesting to me was the progression of the numbers. The 100 is large scale, the coins moves it to more of our people zone, the older brother is deeply personal. Jesus is talking to them. If you haven’t read The Prodigal God I highly  recommend it.

Chapter 16: The people of the world are more shrewd than the believers. Jesus was talking to the disciples. I think he was calling them out. The Pharisees didn’t like this at all. They scoffed at it. I think we live in a season were there are many churches thinking shrewdly and at the same time we have churches scoffing at them. I also want to mention The Rich Man and Lazarus. What was Lazarus’ crime? He didn’t help, serve, or share.