Posted by Rob Borley | Posted on 23-06-2005
Category : Bible
Acts Chapter 7 is probably most famous for two things. The stoning of the first martyr, Steven, and the introduction of Soul, a.k.a Paul. However, something else struck me as I read this passage.
The above events happen right at the end of the chapter. Most of the passage is made up of Steven in front of the authorities having been falsely accused of blasphemy. What Steven then proceeds to do is to give an account of the history of the Jews from Abraham through to Solomon and on to His present day. Obviously this was paraphrased and incomplete but it does show a very interesting skill that I believe that we should be using more today.
Jesus spent much of his time teaching using stories (parables) to get across spiritual principles. Steven here sums up much of the history of the Jews in story form. Telling stories is a very simple way of getting our point across. Whether it is to illustrate a point, or to recount a Biblical event, telling a story that people can understand can me much more useful to the audience than simply reading from text.
Steven’s knowledge, and of course Jesus’ knowledge of scripture was such that they could accurately and effectively use this medium. I guess that’s the challenge. To know the Bible to a level that I can break it down and re-craft it into story form that while being easy to understand is also honoring of the truth.
Posted by Rob Borley | Posted on 22-06-2005
Category : Cell / Sermon notes, Literature
An interesting topic was brought up in cell last night. That was of Spiritual Discipline. We were discussing: what a Spiritual Discipline was? Do we need them? Why?
It was suggested that a dictionary definition was “Things we did as a disciple so as to be more like the person we are being discipled by”. There are other definitions but this seemed to help as we are Disciples of Christ and in order to be more like him our Spiritual part is what would need to come into line.
We have discussed the idea previously that we need to move away from the idea of ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ (WWJD) to ‘How Did Jesus Live?’ To stop trying to simple mimic Jesus from moment to moment and instead look at the lifestyle which lead to the way He responded to any given situation.
In essence, His Spiritual Disciplines.
I am sure that this is a topic which we will return to but I will leave it with this thought. I am currently reading a book by Dallas Willard called ‘The Spirit of the Disciplines.‘ Like all of Willard’s stuff it’s deep! I haven’t yet finished it but in it he suggests that there are basically 5 Spiritual Disciplines which Jesus lived out and which we should try and follow to get ourselves out of the WWJD attitude and into the HDJL way of thinking.
The 5 Willard suggests are Prayer, Studying the Word, Solitude, Fasting, and Serving. Some of these are not particularly fashionable today and I am looking forward to reading as to why Willard thinks that they are important.
I’ll let you know 
)
Posted by Rob Borley | Posted on 21-06-2005
Category : Bible
This morning I read
Acts 6. This is a brief account of how a dispute had risen up amongst the people of the growing church. The dispute was about the distribution of food for those in need (the widows) in the two groups.
The 12 disciples had a very interesting reaction to the problem. While they saw that this problem needed sorting out they knew that they had been given the task of spreading to word and also knew that they should not neglect this. So they oversaw the appointment of people to manage the food distribution, laying down very specific, and interesting qualifications.
Verse 3: “…men of good standing, full of the spirit and of wisdom…”
Two things that I’ve noted from this:
- That leaders should not look to control everything. Delegation is key so they their own gifting is not wasted and their call does not go unanswered.
- For seemingly less ‘spiritual’ tasks we should seek to appoint people of good standing, full of the spirit and of wisdom.
These qualities are clearly something we should all seek and are not just for those who stand at the front and preach.
