Hi, I’m Rob and I am currently planting a church with Ecclesia Stockton. You can find us here, here, or here.

Continuing to go through the book of Matthew one chapter a day for the next three years. Today it’s Matthew 6:

9″This, then, is how you should pray:
” ‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
10your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
11Give us today our daily bread.
12Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.’ 14For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Here is a sermon on the prayer that Jesus taught his followers by Scot McKnight at Mars Hill Church. Scot McKnight is one of the most well rounded Evangelical scholars I know. And he is teaching at Mars Hill and doesn’t have a problem with Rob Bell. If he doesn’t think that Bell is a heretic, like Mark Driscoll inappropriately states, then I don’t think he is either:-)

To find where this “missional” language is part of the narrative of scripture and not just a new fad for the church but something very old that needs to be recovered check out these links:

The Missional Language of “Sending” – Introduction
The Missional Language of “Sending” – The Pentateuch
The Missional Language of “Sending” – The Historical & Poetic Books
The Missional Language of “Sending” – The Prophetic Books
The Missional Language of “Sending” – John

Continuing to through the book of Matthew one chapter a day offering a thought, quote, prayer. This is round two. Round one is here. Should be teaching on Matthew 5 sometime after Lent:

Matthew 5:1Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2and he began to teach them saying:
3″Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
5Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
7Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
8Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
9Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.
10Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11″Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Frederick Dale Bruner says, “First and literally the beatitudes are Jesus’ surprisingly counter-cultural God-bless-you’s to people in God-awful situations.”

“You are really walking in the good news of the kingdom if you can go with confidence to any of the hopeless people around you and effortlessly convey assurance that they can now enter a blessed life with God.”-Dallas Willard

I can’t wait to teach on Matthew 14 so I can show this video!

cf. Luke 23:8-11
“When Herod saw Jesus, he was greatly pleased, because for a long time he had been wanting to see him. From what he had heard about him, he hoped to see him perform some miracle. He plied him with many questions, but Jesus gave him no answer. The chief priests and the teachers of the law were standing there, vehemently accusing him. Then Herod and his soldiers ridiculed and mocked him. Dressing him in an elegant robe, they sent him back to Pilate.”

Continuing going through the book of Matthew one chapter a day with one thought for the day. Today is round two of Matthew chapter 4. For previous post see here. I’ll be teaching on this at Ecclesia February 14th:

Matthew 4:4Jesus answered, “It is written: …”

7Jesus answered him, “It is also written:…”

10Jesus said to him…For it is written:

Matthew chapter 4 shifts from Jesus’ baptism to his temptation in the desert. There are a lot of directions that this post could go in. I could talk about Jesus being the new Israel. I could talk about him overcoming the temptation in the desert while Adam failed his temptation in the garden. I could talk about the rich history of the desert wanderings…and I’m sure I will when I get to talk for 35 minutes. But I want to put all those things aside for a moment and make one observation. When Jesus faced temptation he answered with scripture.

One of the things that we are challenging people at Ecclesia to do is the read through the book of Matthew once a month for three years and to memorize a verse a week. Do we quiz people who come into the Sunday gathering? No. Do we quiz people who are in our journaling communities? No. Do we quiz people in our Villages before they can join? No. Do we quiz people on our Advocate/leadership team? No.

But the truth is that everyday we are quizzed. Everyday we face a thousand different temptations to be pulled away from God. And the role of scripture, or one of the roles, is to root us within the story of the redeeming, loving, counter-cultural story of God. And rooting ourselves in that story is what helps us find our place and role in the world/country/state/city/family/community that we find ourselves in.

The truth is that we are being quizzed in a thousand different ways to see if we have rooted ourselves deep within the narrative of Jesus birth, life, death and resurrection.

Continuing going through the book of Matthew one chapter a day with one thought for the day. Today is round two of Matthew chapter 3. For previous post see here, and for sermon at Ecclesia see here.

3:1In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea 2and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”

In speaking on this topic subject it was actually one of the teachings at Ecclesia that I received a lot of positive input (and by positive I mean people feeling like God was working on their heart) in our 11 month history. It was interesting because the subject was repentance. Not really a wildly culturally popular subject but I think it resonated with people’s heart because we framed repentance within the first century meaning and not the associations that we make with that word today of someone with a bullhorn standing on a soapbox yelling at people.

Repentance is from the Hebrew word shuv or teshuva. It doesn’t mean to have a good cry but it means to come home. Repentance is a word of homecoming. It is a word that says that it doesn’t matter where you’ve been or what you’ve done…you can come home again. I know you don’t believe it but you can come home again. I know others have given you the impression that you could never belong to God after what you’ve done but you can come home again.

That’s a word that only makes sense from a platform of love not hate.

So what is keeping you from coming home?

As an excercise for your heart please read Luke 15 and the story of the prodigal son then read these words by Henry Nouwen from his book The Return of the Prodigal:

“Why should I leave the place where all I need to hear can be heard? The more I think about this question the more I realize that the true voice of love is a very soft and gentle voice speaking to me in the most hidden places of my being. It is not a boisterous voice forcing itself on me demanding my attention. It is the voice of a nearly blind father who has cried much and died many deaths. It is a voice that can be heard by those who allow themselves to be touched.”

Continuing to go through the book of Matthew looking at one chapter a day and offering a thought, question, or quote. This is cycle 2 of going through this book online. Today I am kicking back off again in chapter 1. Click here for last months thoughts on chapter 1 or here for whole Matthew series so far. Click here for sermon I gave at Ecclesia last December on Matthew 1:1-17 or here for 1:18-25.

Matthew 1:1 A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham:

In the book Romea and Juliet, Shakespeare gives away the whole plot of the book in its opening lines:
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life,
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents̓ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-marked love
And the continuance of their parents̓ rage,
Which but their children̓s end, naught could remove,
Is now the two-hours̓traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

He begins the story by giving away the plot and conclusion. Two lovers scorn the feuds of their family and it wasn’t in the stars for their love to survive. He’s that good that he can give away the plot knowing that the story is so good that people will want to bear the “two-hour traffic of our stage.” Matthew’s story is similar in that in the first line he gives away the main content of what Jesus is about trusting that the story, the character, the magnitude of his life is so great that you will stay for the two hours of traffic that mark the remaining of the story Matthew is about to tell.

Several things would leap off of the page.

The first two words in greek are biblio geneosis which translates “The Book of Genesis”:
So if Genesis was about creation and God’s relationship with the birth of the world, then apparently this Jesus is going to be about some sort of new Creation that is occurring, something new being birthed.

Jesus Christ: Christ isn’t Jesus last name. Christ, in Hebrew is Mashiach (Messiah) and was the term for royalty, a king. Christ isn’t a last name but a job description. So this Jesus is going to be about a king and a his kingdom.

And in a whole list of names in which these next two will be repeated he says Jesus is the son of David, the son of Abraham. These two names are going to speak to the details of this kingdom.

Son of David speaks the length of his rule.
1 Chronicles 17:11-14
When your days are over and you go to be with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. I will never take my love away from him, as I took it away from your predecessor. I will set him over my house and my kingdom forever; his throne will be established forever.

Son of David speaks to the length of rule: Forever; never taken away; established; throne

Son of Abraham speaks to the universality or width of his rule.
Genesis 12:1-3
The LORD has said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.
“I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all people on earth will be blessed through you.”

Genesis 18:18
“Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him.”

Genesis 22:17-18
“I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”

Son of Abraham speaks to the who, the people that belong to this kingdom:
“Nation; great; blessing”
“All people on earth will be blessed through you”
“All nations on earth will be blessed through him”
“All nations on earth will be blessed”

If being a son of David speaks of Jesus rule never ending then being a son of Abraham speaks to his rule that is ever growing, ever increasing, ever reaching to all people everywhere. This may be an obscure people group on the margins of the Roman empire but this kingdom is for the good, the blessing, of everyone everywhere.

And just like Shakespeare, Matthew gives away the plot, and believes that the story is so complelling that you will stay for the two hours of traffick onstage.

Continuing to go through the book of Matthew looking at one chapter a day and offering a thought, question, or quote. Today it is Matthew 28:

After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

2There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. 4The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

5The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. 6He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. 7Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”

8So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. 10Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

Who were the first the first witnesses of the resurrection? Women.
Who were not allowed to be witnesses in court in this culture? Women.

One of many of the inadvertent testimonials to the validity of the resurrection isn’t a persuasive argument but an observation. Those first witnesses of the resurrection play a role that no one trying to trick people into believing that Jesus rose from the dead would use. If you were making up a story trying to convince people that Jesus rose from the grave then it would be a poor decision to use women to authenticate the story because they couldn’t testify in court. Their voice didn’t matter. You would use men as the witnesses if you wanted any kind of cultural credibility.

This is just one of many examples in the scriptures in which the story of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection was just something that you wouldn’t think of writing unless you were recording what actually happened.

Not only do women as witnesses at the tomb speak for the authenticity of the resurrection but it speaks of God’s value of the woman’s voice. The church gather’s every Sunday morning traditionally instead of the Jewish Sabbath, Saturday, because of the resurrection occurred on a Sunday. Resurrection Sunday was started off with the voice of women. That first Sunday, women were allowed to testify to the resurrection of Jesus yet for many churches, women are kept silent on Sunday, the day these first women testified to the resurrection, some churches tell them to be quiet. That’s odd.

For more on the Resurrection please read N.T. Wright’s book Surprised by Hope
For more on women in ministry please read Scot McKnight’s blog as this is a subject he has talked about much because at one time he was a part of churches that silenced women in regards to teaching. He has several series that look through the scriptures and the role that women had in the bible and books on the subject by different authors.

Continuing to go through the book of Matthew looking at one chapter a day and offering a thought, question, or quote. Today it is Matthew 23:

Matthew 23:13, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!

Hypocrisy was an actors term. It was a word coined for an individual who was playing a role. It was a word in the acting world of someone who was no longer themselves but behaving as someone else in front of others. There are two keys to hypocrisy 1) the hypocrite chooses the opinion of the crowd vs. choosing an audience of one (God) and 2) the hypocrite ultimately doesn’t live in a community of grace. They are in a community where they have to put on a front or a face. After a while it becomes all they know.

It was Shakespeare who said that God has given us one face and we have traded it for another.

Do you hate hypocrisy in the church. So does Jesus. If you have been turned off by the hypocrisy of others that is understandable. And we tend to be very aware of the hypocrisy of others and very tolerant of our own. Where might you, before you have all kinds of images of people in your mind that this applies to, first look at yourself?

We often always put ourselves in the shoes of the hero’s in the text and put others in the shoes of those who are doing less than stellar.