Chapter 33 - The Parables

Chapter 33 used 7 Bible passages to challenge our understanding of The Parables, as follows:

Mark 4:1-34
Matthew 13:10-17
2 Samuel 12:1-25
Romans 10:1-21
John 16:1-16
Proverbs 6:20-23
Isaiah 48:14-22

Invocation:

“O Eternal Christ, understandable to even me, I thank you for putting the latchstring so low I can reach it. I can reach the Highest, for you are the Highest become lowly, reachable. And so I come, for in you I ‘see’ – see everything I need. I thank you. Amen.” (From The Way by E. Stanley Jones)

Hymn:

The hymn for Chapter 33 was “Wonderful Words of Life” by P. P. Bliss. (If you are not familiar with the song, just Google the hymn name and you will get multiple sources to read and/or hear it, as well as its history.)

Benediction:

“O gracious Christ, you have so lavishly given yourself to every part of all that surrounds me. Let me hear you, see you, know you. Cleanse me of the sin of inattention. Amen.”

Meditation Selections:

The meditation selections included excerpts from the writings of A. Berkeley Mickelsen, A. M. Hunter, Glenn Clark, Frederick Buechner, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Martin E. Marty, Douglas Beyer, G. A. Buttrick and Elie Wiesel. (Googling their names may give you some insight into their backgrounds and experiences, if that's of any interest to you.)

Some of the interesting quotes from the meditations included:

• “Jesus used parables to teach spiritual truths. The condition of each hearer determines whether that aim is realized or not.”
• “Every parable of Jesus was meant to evoke a response and to strike for a verdict.”
• “The form that He used most frequently to convey spiritual truths to the unripened mind was the parable. By this method He could keep the inner experience concealed from those whose hearts were hardened and unprepared … for the planting. Yet at the same time the parable shell was … hermetically sealed, so to speak, …ready for instant immolation and growth the moment the soil opens to receive it.”
• “We are so used to hearing what we want to hear and remaining deaf to what it would be well for us to hear that it is hard to break the habit. …If we listen with patience and hope, … his word to each of us is both recoverable and precious beyond telling.”
• “Jesus had a way of putting things that time does not wear out.”
• “Texts do their disclosing best when they are capable of upsetting the reader’s world. … The parable discloses because it is different from our contemporary experience.”
• “One of the differences between great art and mediocre art is that with great art you can never get all that is there. …The parable of the prodigal son is one of the best-known stories of all time. Read it again, and see what you missed the last time.”
• “They (the parables) are based on things seen, and they awake immediate and vivid images which are seen again in the mind. …The parables did not bring alien information; rather they focused and called into action what people already half knew was so, and now suddenly could fully see.”

What do any of these quotes (or any of the meditations in Chapter 33 not quoted) mean to you? Please post your responses to the blog site:
(http://lhcndeeperlifeclass.blogspot.com/).

Thanks for your participation.
John

Chapter 32 - The Beatitudes

Chapter 32 helped us enlarge our understanding of “The Beatitudes” using 7 Bible passages, as follows:

Matthew 5:1-12
Luke 6:20-23
Matthew 7:28-29
Luke 4:14-21
2 John 9
Mark 13:28-31
John 6:66-69

Invocation:

“…Be in me increasingly that your Kingdom, your rule, may guide my decisions, inspire my will, and determine my actions. Amen” (From Deep Is the Hunger by Howard Thurman)

Hymn:

The hymn for Chapter 32 was “Sitting at the Feet of Jesus” by Asa Hull. (If you are not familiar with the song, just Google the hymn name and you will get multiple sources to read and/or hear it, as well as its history.)

Benediction:

“Bless the Lord, O my soul. All that is within me bless his holy name. Amen.”

Meditation Selections:

The meditation selections included excerpts from the writings of Edward Farrell, Susan Annette Muto, Oswald Chambers, John R. W. Stott, Archibald Hunter and Leslie F. Brandt. (Googling their names may give you some insight into their backgrounds and experiences, if that's of any interest to you.)

Some of the interesting quotes from the meditations included:

• “The beatitudes are Jesus’ self-portrait, the most personal description we have of Him in the Gospels.”
• “…the Beatitudes are foundational attitudes of the spiritual life… and … they give form to it as a whole. …When we live the Beatitudes in and with the Lord, we become liberated persons in the fullest sense. We follow the path of purgation until, with Jesus, we are filled with the peace of surrender to the Father and led by his Spirit to new depths of intimacy with the Indwelling Trinity.”
• “Beware of placing Our Lord as a Teacher first. …when I am born again of the Spirit of God, I know that Jesus Christ did not come to teach only: He came to make me what He teaches I should be. …The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount produces despair in the natural man – the very thing Jesus means it to do. ‘Blessed are the paupers in spirit,’ that is the first principle in the Kingdom of God. The bedrock in Jesus Christ’s kingdom is poverty, not possession….”
• “…He never asks us to decide for Him, but to yield to Him – a very different thing.”
• “…the beatitudes are Christ’s own specification of what every Christian ought to be. All these qualities are to characterize all his followers. Just as the nine-fold fruit of the Spirit which Paul lists is to ripen in every Christian character, so the eight beatitudes which Christ speaks of describe his ideal for every citizen of God’s kingdom.”
• “The Beatitudes are not so much ethics of obedience as ethics of grace.”

What do any of these quotes (or any of the meditations in Chapter 32 not quoted) mean to you? Please post your responses to the blog site:
(http://lhcndeeperlifeclass.blogspot.com/).

Thanks for your participation.
John