Bible Study Thread: Luke

[BetteTheRed]

I'm going to propose we drop this subject on the Luke thread, and return this thread to its topic. This isn't purple, but it could be.

 

[Seeler]

ok so I have a great idea, which really this is the way it should be, Instead of calling someone out on a thread for all to see and offend the person, why not just anonymously report it and let the mods do there Job. After all I have been a mod and I can honestly say that they are very good and honest at what they do.

If I were to report every time unsafe has offended me, contradicted me, told me that I'm not a Christian, and attempted to derail my posts, I'm afraid I would be keeping the moderators very busy.

Sorry Paradox for contributing to the derailing of this thread..

 

[BetteTheRed]

How do you view repentance?

What place do you see for prayers of confession in a life of faith? My current congregation does not have a regular one in its worship service. Years ago I attended a church which included one every week. It always began, "Oh God you have called us to make confession of our sins that we might receive your forgiveness."

We still have a "prayer of confession". We just don't call it that. It's called the Prayer of Accountability, and it might have some gentle nudges about where we might have 'missed the mark', or where we might try harder to aim at the mark, but it's very gentle. Followed the "Words of Affirmation", and almost always, a short musical response, usually from MV (like 115).

 

[blackbelt1961]

If I were to report every time unsafe has offended me, contradicted me, told me that I'm not a Christian, and attempted to derail my posts, I'm afraid I would be keeping the moderators very busy.

Sorry Paradox for contributing to the derailing of this thread..

when i was a mod, i was busy, so yes keep em busy

 

[paradox3]

Sometimes we have some words that seem "confession-like" in the call to worship but not always.

 

[Mendalla]

The problem I have seen with Prayers of Confession is that they still lack humility. In particular, the assurance of pardon that usually follows kind of wipes away the whole thing as if that cleans the clock. Confession is one thing, but repentence is another and I'm not sure that a corporate Prayer of Confession actually accomplishes the latter. It often sounds more like the Pharisee than the tax collector, IOW.

 

[Redbaron]

We tend to use a prayer of confession-like prayer for Communion service, which we do 6x yearly. The ones we use are a little less self-deprecating than the traditional ones that invite us to see ourselves as 'poor, miserable worms' and such language. But they are acknowledgements that 'we messed up, we could and should be better, forgive and renew us in your Spirit' type of language.

 

[BetteTheRed]

Hmmm...I would miss the Prayer of Accountability, as long as it always came with the Words of Affirmation. Do you know MV115? "Behold, behold, I make all things new, beginning with you, and starting from today"?

 

[Mendalla]

The ones we use are a little less self-deprecating than the traditional ones that invite us to see ourselves as 'poor, miserable worms' and such language.

To be frank, I find that whole track is just "misery porn" with people trying to upstage one another as to how lowly and miserable they are. They aren't humbled by their sinfulness, but wallow in it and are proud of how loud they confess. They are no more humble than the Pharisee.

 

[Redbaron]

Hmmm...I would miss the Prayer of Accountability, as long as it always came with the Words of Affirmation. Do you know MV115? "Behold, behold, I make all things new, beginning with you, and starting from today"?

We've used that in past congregations as a choral introit, especially during Easter season. A great piece of music!

 

[BetteTheRed]

Especially if you make sure you add in some silence for personal reflection, it goes "We haven't been perfect since this time last week. We tried, and we often thought we were doing and saying the right thing, but often we know we weren't. Please help us be better. Minister chimes in "you tried, go out and try some more". Everyone sings a bit and corporately feels a bit better. I think it's a good thing for a community to do every week?

 

[paradox3]

We had a healing service with laying on of hands just before Christmas. It was not a Blue Christmas service per se but it had some of the same elements. There was a prayer of confession which surprised me quite a bit but it was very powerful in that context.

 

[paradox3]

The tax collector was beating his breast in today's lesson which we would find overly dramatic these days. Interesting that each man was standing on his own with the other a ways off when their prayers took place.

 

[Redbaron]

I did a sermon on this a few years back, titled 'A Grammar Lesson.' The upshot was to notice the subject of each sentence... for the Pharisee, 'I' I fast... I give... I am not like... (Of course, given my taste for bad puns, I just had to point out that he was a real I-sore. Sorry.) For the tax collector is was 'Lord.' 'Lord, be merciful to me. There may be something to consider about that, too. The content and intent of the prayers matters, too.

 

[blackbelt1961]

when i was a mod, i was busy, so yes keep em busy

keep em busy

 

[BetteTheRed]

The tax collector was beating his breast in today's lesson which we would find overly dramatic these days. Interesting that each man was standing on his own with the other a ways off when their prayers took place.

They'd each, as adult males, be wearing their own prayer shawl, with the tassels at the corners, held over their head, sort of like an individual tent. A synagogue at prayer today, with the adult persons sharing their prayer shawls with visitors and children, is more like a sea of individual tents than an organized face-forward row arrangement; although they might have row of chairs, they would not usually have pews to enforce that front to back hierarchy. And the scrolls are read on a table, but it's not usually on a raised dais, so the top to bottom element is also missing.

 

[paradox3]

Author Amy-Jill Levine, who I mentioned earlier, thinks we Christians need to reconsider how we view the Pharisees.

Certainly Jesus is critical of their hypocrisy but there are a few places in scripture where they are presented in a positive light.

Anyways, I think it is worth asking who we consider to be the present day equivalent of the Pharisee and the tax collector in today's story.

Maybe we can only conclude we have elements of both within our hearts.

 

[BetteTheRed]

Certainly Jesus is critical of their hypocrisy but there are a few places in scripture where they are presented in a positive light.

It might even be more accurately said that the real Jesus was critical of hypocritical 'religious people', and that this Gospel, Luke, was probably written during a period of evolving distance between the tattered remnants of the Jewish people in Jerusalem, who had had lost their capital city and their temple, the place God had commanded them to worship God, and this evolving "Christian" sect, which seemed to the scholars to be schisming with their essential faith completely.

 

[Waterfall]

Author Amy-Jill Levine, who I mentioned earlier, thinks we Christians need to reconsider how we view the Pharisees.

Certainly Jesus is critical of their hypocrisy but there are a few places in scripture where they are presented in a positive light.

Anyways, I think it is worth asking who we consider to be the present day equivalent of the Pharisee and the tax collector in today's story.

Maybe we can only conclude we have elements of both within our hearts.

Does anyone think Jesus is being a tad hypocritical by withholding grace from the
pharisee?

 

[BetteTheRed]

This is post-Paul, Paul the Roman Jew who convinced the early church that they could eat what they wished, and not circumcise Gentile men as a condition of membership.