Month: October 2019
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The Expectation vs. the Reality of Prayer
Jesus criticized the Pharisees for both the quality and the quantity of their prayers. He also criticized their expectations of a quid pro quo for their prayer, fasting, and the giving of alms. I suspect most of us are like the Pharisees. We think if we pray more, longer, better, with more people, faith, sincerity,…
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The Second Woe (continued): Prayer
When I was a boy, we had an Elder in church who made very long prayers. When we saw him up on the platform we would groan. We were more concerned to time him than to listen to what he actually prayed. Most of his prayers were about 12 minutes long but could run to…
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The Second Woe: Quid Pro Quo?
Jesus not only criticized the religion of the scribes and Pharisees—He attempted to re-define it. In the “First Woe” [see last week’s discussion] Jesus pointed out that salvation was linked to that of others, and that those who value their relationship with God and who are spiritual leaders have an obligation not to burden others…
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Impediment to Salvation
What role do we have in each other’s salvation? How can we facilitate salvation for one another, or how can we prevent, limit, derail, undo, discourage, or otherwise impede the salvation of others? Are there clues in what Jesus said about the Pharisees in the passage we discussed last week? Moses was and is known…