Stepping into Scripture

Liturgical Year A

Lillith O'Shann Edmiston Moore

• Verlag: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Jahr: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781646707706
• Thema: Theology & Religion
• Thema: Christian Education

Stepping Into Scripture is designed to teach you how to immerse yourself into God's Word.You will learn to take a scripture passage, construct a flow chart and then write what God spoke to your heart and what God taught you.Stepping Into Scriptureis a resource book designed for clergy, lay speakers, Bible study teachers, Sunday school teachers, accountability groups or your private study. God speaks to us through his word. WithStepping Into Scripture, you have the opportunity for God to speak to your spirit and be shown new insights.

Easter 7 Year A

John 17:1–11

Glorify God

Jesus had been talking with the disciples in plain language. They now understood Jesus came from God and knew all things.105 Then Jesus looked up to the heavens and talked with the Father.

The hour had come. Jesus was aware of the time on God’s watch and the date on his calendar. He knew it was time for him to glorify the Father. To glorify is to make visible the presence of God. Jesus glorified God when he interceded for the believing community. Jesus stated that he glorified the Father through obedience to the mission God had given him. He spoke of the glory he had in God’s presence before the world existed. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.”106 Jesus glorified God when he gave up his position and came to earth in the form of a baby.

“The Word became, flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s son full of grace ad truth.”107 All Jesus did and said directed people to God the Father so that all praise and honor would be given to the one true God.

What about us? How do we glorify the Father?

We glorify God when we love him with all our hearts, our souls, and our mind.108 This is considered the greatest commandment. We are to place nothing and no one above God. In Luke 14:26, Jesus states unless we hate our mother and father, we cannot be his disciple. The word hate means to love less.109 Matthew 10:37 states it this way. “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” In other words, God is our first priority above all others and above anything.

We show this love when we are obedient to God. Each one of us is given a mission. We will have different missions throughout our lives. When we complete the mission, we are given another with each one more difficult than the last. With each completed mission, our faith becomes stronger and deeper. Because we learn through experience God is trustworthy and faithful, we accept the mission more readily. Over time we learn to relax and totally depend on God to bring it to fruition. We give up our will and take up his.

We glorify God when we love others.110 Repeated throughout the Bible we are told we are to love others as we love ourselves. This is the second greatest commandment. Scripture tells us that all the other laws are founded on these two commandments. We are even told to love our enemies and pray for them.111 Yes, it is easy for us to love our family and friends but much harder to love those who hate us or our loved ones. But if are to be children of God, we must love all people as everyone is our neighbor.

We show this love for others through our service. Jesus did not come into the world to be served, but to serve. Before the festival of the Passover, Jesus took off his outer robe, wrapped a towel around himself, and washed the feet of the disciples.112 Jesus was showing them by example they were to be servant of all, even those who would betray them.

If we first love God and second love all our neighbors, we will fulfill all the other commandments and we will glorify God making him visible to all.

Stepping

Stepping into Pentecost

into

Pentecost

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105 John 16: 25–32

106 John 1:1–2

107 John 1:14

108 Matthew 22:34–38

109 Strong’s Greek Dictionary #3404

110 Matthew 22:39–40

111 Matthew 5:43–45

112 John 13:1–5

Pentecost Year A

John 7:37–39

Drink Offering

We find ourselves on the last day of the Festival of Booths. This is the seventh and last festival of the biblical calendar. It took place on the fifteenth day of the seventh month and lasted seven days. The first and last days were a holy convocation, but each day, offerings were given to the Lord. On the last day, the priest would have taken freshly drawn water and poured it out on the altar as a sacrifice to the Lord. This festival was celebrated at the temple and the Israelites lived in temporary shelters to remember how the Lord had provided shelter in the wilderness when he brought them out of Egypt. Just as Jesus was the manna in the wilderness and the rock which brought forth water in the wilderness, he is also the libation of the drink offering, the sacrifice.113

On this last day of the festival of booths, Jesus stood and said if anyone was thirsty and believed in him, to come to him and drink. The Israelites would have known part of the ceremony was to offer a drink offering to God. There are two instances in the New Testament where Jesus used the term Living Water. Jesus told the woman at the well114 that he would give her living water and she would never thirst again. So the living water is not Jesus but she would receive it from him. At the festival of booths, Jesus said those who believed in him would flow rivers of living water from the believer’s heart. Ezekiel 36:24–27 states, “I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.”

At the Passover meal before Jesus was arrested, He blessed the bread and then the wine saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” Jesus did not do away with the drink offering but became the drink offering.115

When Jesus spoke of living water, he was referring to the Holy Spirit. This was the promise of the Holy Spir...