Some thoughts for tonight...and apologies.

First, the apology. This week as school gets under way, I am falling behind in blogging about the Sunday school lesson. It will be up by Friday night...or Saturday! Sorry to keep you waiting. (Actually, does anyone read this at all?? If you do, leave some love in the comments!)


Now for some thoughts. Tonight we talked about a very hard parable Jesus told. In Matthew 22, he described a wedding banquet given by a king for his son. The guests were invited and none came. In fact, they killed the servants who came to invite them. So, the king sent other servants to invite everyone they found, even those on the streets. As the party began, the king noticed one guy was not dressed properly. (Remember, folks were invited from everywhere, even off the streets) In his anger, he had the man bound and cast out into the darkness. What a harsh picture!

There are many disturbing things about this parable. I am not sure about all the answers to questions that I have. I may never have answers that satisfy my head and heart. But, as we talked about all the possible meanings of various lines and different characters, I realized several things. 1) I know so very little. About the Bible. About life. About ministry. About myself. 2) Sometimes scripture is hard. Hard to read. Hard to understand. Hard to grasp. Even hard to believe.

And yet, as we talked several truths were evident (whether they were really in this particular text or not is another matter!). 1) We have a task to do...namely, share the gospel and make disciples. 2) We can get so caught up in keep the "rules of our faith" that we miss the actual faith part. We are so religious that we ignore our relationship with Christ.

So, are you sharing gospel with people? Are you following rules or living in a relationship?
(By the way, rules aren't all bad, except when they replace the relationship!)