Luke 10:25-37, to me, has always been a parable about a person who crossed cultural divides to serve and love another. My understanding of the parable of the “Good Samaritan” prior to this week was focused on my call as a Christian to serve others in need and not walk past them; plan and simple. This week, however, I am left with additional points of focus. Through Short Stories__1 I have been lead to explore the effect the parable would have on me if I identified with the victim instead of the Samaritan.
Read more...The parable of the dishonest manager has always been challenging for me to interpret. Is there a positive figure in the parable? Is there even a lesson in the narrative portion of the parable or does that only come after 8a when Jesus gives his interpretation? Does the narrative even fit with Jesus’ interpretation, or was this explanation possibly a Lukan addition; his attempt to salvage a well-known story attributed to Jesus by the early church? In this analysis I will attempt to answer my own questions about this parable by first, looking for meaning in verses 1-8a as a distinct narrative pericope and second, by attempting to resolve Jesus’ interpretation of the narrative with my reading.
Read more...For a movement still in its infancy when compared against other traditions and movements within the Christian oikoumene the Wesleyan church tradition has already reached a high level of diversity both in theology and practice. John Wesley was not a systematic theologian. His theology, like the apostle Paul, came out of the practical needs of the people he ministered to.1 Wesley was more focus on what he need to teach his parishioners and how best to teach them along with what the entire revival should be doing to best serve God and neighbor.2 Somewhere between Wesley’s revival and the modern church, the Wesleyan tradition lost its focus and started down unknown paths. Engaging with the Wesleyan theological tradition the core of Wesleyan theological thought can be sufficiently reduced to a study on the nature and work of the Triune God and that God’s universal plan to bring all creation into relationships of love with himself.
Read more...The dominant worldview of Jesus, Paul, and the contemporary Hebrews was that of apocalyptic-eschatology. The prophets of the Hebrew Bible had spoken of the coming Kingdom of God and Jesus had declared himself a prophet who was the sign that the time of the end was coming for the world. Jesus, Paul, and their contemporary Judaism all have something to say about the Hebrew god’s revealing of the end of time. In many instances all three streams share a common narrative; however, each reinterprets and recasts the narrative for a particular audience and context.
Read more...The selected readings from chapter two of Walter Klaiber and Manfred Marquardt’s Living Grace: An Outline of United Methodist Theology focus on two traditional flashpoints in Western Christianity’s tension between the ever-growing body of secular truths and theories about the natural world and the all-powerful, loving creator God of the Old and New Testaments. In the first selection - pages 93 to 102 - the authors focus on the tension between the Judeo-Christian belief in ex nihilo1 creation and natural science’s discovered truths and generally accepted theories over the last several centuries. In the second selection - pages 115 to 126 - the authors focus their attention on the Wesleyan theology of theodicy; how we explain and embrace the seemingly contradictory nature of a loving God who allows suffering. In both selections the authors juxtapose the seemingly nihilistic nature of modern atheistic, secular thought against the always-creating Christian God of love. Rather than furthering the conflict, the authors in both selections bridge the gap between worldviews by presenting a theology of God that is larger than ancient Mesopotamian understandings of creation and beyond the machinations of DNA chains and the “chance” of natural selection.
Read more...Background
“O For A Thousand Tongues to Sing” was written in May 1739 by Charles Wesley in remembrance of his moment of assurance and full conversion. The year before, Charles had become very sick and was cared for by a group of Christians. Their service, prayers, and testimonies during his sickness greatly affected Charles and caused him great reflection. While on the mend after the sickness, he was reading from his Bible and had an experience that would later be mirrored by his brother John at Aldersgate. Charles would point to this even as a great renewal of his faith. Hymn 57 in the United Methodist Hymnal was written in remembrance of this great renewal originally as an 18 stanza poem, but later shorted into a hymn for the Methodist hymnal of 1780.
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