September 22, 2019

Breaking Open the Scripture Scriptures for September 22nd: Jeremiah 8:18-9:1; Psalm 79:1-9; 1 Timothy 2:1-7; Luke 16:1-13 Theme: Being faithful with what God gives us Luke 16:1-13: This is one of those confusing parables – what in the world is Jesus trying to say? A servant owes money to his boss, and he gets the money from all of the people that owe him to pay his debt. And Jesus is praising this as behavior that we should emulate. Jesus turns it into a story of being responsible for what God has given us. That when we have been given much, them we are responsible for much. All of us have been made stewards of things that don’t belong to us, everything that we have actually belongs to God, we have been put in charge of it. And we spend our life thinking of how to make th best of it. How to serve God in everything that we do. I Timothy 2:1-7: We are reminded in this verse that everything that we do as faithful people starts with prayer. The first things that Paul tells us to do is to pray. Pray for leaders pray for ourselves, pray for faith. There is no second or third thing after prayer. Prayer is everything. Next Paul gives the faith statement of every Christian – Jesus Christ is our savior. Jesus is both human like us, and divine like God. Jesus Christ is the mediator between these two natures. And that we are called to give that good news to others, to be messengers of God. Paul celebrates that he is a teacher of this faith – that is our primary task as preachers and disciples of Christ. Questions: What has God given you responsibility over, how to you exercise good stewardship over those things? Who do you believe that Jesus Christ is to his followers? Who in your life do you take the time to teach the truth about Jesus?